I 


THE  WATCHER  BY 
THE  THRESHOLD 

JOHN     B  U  C  H  A  N 


y 


BY  JOHN  BUCHAN 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 
.    PRESTER  JOHN 

SALUTE  TO  ADVENTURERS 

THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  SOMME 

GREEN  MANTLE 

THE  POWER-HOUSE 

THE  THIRTY-NINE  STEPS 

NEW  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


THE  WATCHER  BY 
THE  THRESHOLD 

BY 

JOHN  BUCHAN 

Author  of  ^'Greenmantle/' 

"Salvie  to  Adventurers^* 

etc. 


NEW  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


Copyright,  1918, 
By  George  H.  Doran  Company 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


TO 

STAIR  AGNEW  GILLON 


My  dear  Stair, 

We  have  travelled  so  many  roads  together,  highland  and  low- 
land,  pleasant  and  dreary,  that  I  ask  you  to  accept  this  book  of 
travellers'  tales.  For  Scotland  is  a  wide  place  to  travel  in  for 
those  who  believe  that  it  is  not  bounded  strictly  by  kirk  and  mar- 
ket-place, and  who  have  an  ear  for  old  songs  and  lost  romances. 
It  is  of  the  back-world  of  Scotland  that  I  write,  the  land  behind 
the  mist  and  over  the  seven  bens,  a  place  hard  of  access  for  the 
foot-passenger  but  easy  for  the  maker  of  stories.  Meantime,  to 
you,  who  have  chosen  the  better  part,  I  wish  many  bright  days  by 
hill  and  loch  in  the  summers  to  come. 

R.  M.S.Briton,  at  sM  J,  B. 


^1 


''Among  idle  men  there  be  some  who  tarry  in  the  outer 
courts,  speeding  the  days  joyfully  with  dance  and  song. 
Buc  the  other  sort  dwell  near  the  portals  of  the  House, 
and  are  ever  anxious  and  ill  at  ease  that  they  may  see 
something  of  the  Shadows  which  come  and  go.  Where- 
fore night  and  day  they  are  found  watching  by  the  thresh- 
old, in  fearfulness  and  joy,  not  without  tears."  Extract 
from  the  writings  of  Donisarius  of  Padua,  circa  13  lo. 


I 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    No-Man's  Land •     .  13 

II    The  Far  Islands 100 

III  The  Watcher  by  the  Threshold       .     .  137 

IV  The  Outgoing  of  the  Tide       .     •     .     .  204 
V'  The  Rime  of  True  Thomas       .     .     .     .  238 

VI     Basilissa 255 

VII     Divus  Johnston 286 

VIII    The  King  of  Ypres 301 


3X 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 


THE  WATCHER 
BY  THE  THRESHOLD 


no-man's-land 

l:  THE   SHIELING   OF   FARAWA 

IT  was  with  a  light  heart  and  a  pleasing  con- 
sciousness of  holiday  that  I  set  out  from  the 
inn  at  Allermuir  to  tramp  my  fifteen  miles  into 
the  unknown.  I  walked  slowly,  for  I  carried 
my  equipment  on  my  back — my  basket,  fly-books 
and  rods,  my  plaid  of  Grant  tartan  (for  I  boast 
myself  a  distant  kinsman  of  that  house),  and 
my  great  staff,  which  had  tried  ere  then  the 
front  of  the  steeper  Alps.  A  small  valise  with 
books  and  some  changes  of  linen  clothing  had 
been  sent  on  ahead  in  the  shepherd's  own  hands. 
It  was  yet  early  April,  and  before  me  lay  four 
weeks  of  freedom — twenty-eight  blessed  days  in 
which  to  take  fish  and  smoke  the  pipe  of  idle- 

13 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

ness.  The  Lent  term  had  pulled  me  down,  a 
week  of  modest  enjoyment  thereafter  in  town 
had  finished  the  work;  and  I  drank  in  the  sharp 
moorish  air  like  a  thirsty  man  who  has  been  for- 
wandered  among  deserts. 

I  am  a  man  of  varied  tastes  and  a  score  of  in- 
terests. As  an  undergraduate  I  had  been  filled 
with  the  old  mania  for  the  complete  life.  I 
distinguished  myself  in  the  Schools,  rowed  in 
my  college  eight,  and  reached  the  distinction  of 
practising  for  three  weeks  in  the  Trials.  I  had 
dabbled  in  a  score  of  learned  activities,  and  when 
the  time  came  that  I  won  the  inevitable  St. 
Chad's  fellowship  on  my  chaotic  acquirements, 
and  I  found  myself  compelled  to  select  if  I 
would  pursue  a  scholar's  life,  I  had  some 
toil  in  finding  my  vocation.  In  the  end  I  re- 
solved that  the  ancient  life  of  the  North,  of  the 
Celts  and  the  Northmen  and  the  unknown  Pic- 
tish  tribes,  held  for  me  the  chief  fascination.  I 
had  acquired  a  smattering  of  Gaelic,  having 
been  brought  up  as  a  boy  in  Lochaber,  and  now 
I  set  myself  to  increase  my  store  of  languages. 
I  mastered  Erse  and  Icelandic,  and  my  first 
book — a  monograph  on  the  probable  Celtic  ele- 
ments in  the  Eddie  songs — brought  me  the  praise 
of  scholars  and  the  deputy-professor's  chair  of^ 

14 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

Northern  Antiquities.  So  much  for  Oxford. 
My  vacations  had  been  spent  mainly  in  the 
North — in  Ireland,  Scotland,  and  the  Isles,  in 
Scandinavia  and  Iceland,  once  even  in  the  far 
limits  of  Finland.  I  was  a  keen  sportsman  of  a 
sort,  an  old-experienced  fisher,  a  fair  shot  with 
gun  and  rifle,  and  in  my  hillcraft  I  might  well 
stand  comparison  with  most  men.  April  has 
ever  seemed  to  me  the  finest  season  of  the  year 
even  in  our  cold  northern  altitudes,  and  the 
memory  of  many  bright  Aprils  had  brought  me 
up  from  the  South  on  the  night  before  to  AUer- 
foot,  whence  a  dogcart  had  taken  me  up  Glen 
AUer  to  the  inn  at  AUermuir;  and  now  the  same 
desire  had  set  me  on  the  heather  with  my  face 
to  the  cold  brown  hills. 

You  are  to  picture  a  sort  of  plateau,  benty  and 
rock-strewn,  running  ridge-wise  above  a  chain  of 
little  peaty  lochs  and  a  vast  tract  of  inexorable 
bog.  In  a  mile  the  ridge  ceased  in  a  shoulder  of 
hill,  and  over  this  lay  the  head  of  another  glen, 
with  the  same  doleful  accompaniment  of  sunless 
lochs,  mosses,  and  a  shining  and  resolute  water. 
East  and  west  and  north,  in  every  direction  save 
the  south,  rose  walls  of  gashed  and  serrated  hills. 
It  was  a  grey  day  with  blinks  of  sun,  and  when 
a  ray  chanced  to  fall  on  one  of  the  great  dark 

15 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

faces,  lines  of  light  and  colour  sprang  into  being 
which  told  of  mica  and  granite.  I  was  in  high 
spirits,  as  on  the  eve  of  holiday;  I  had  break- 
fasted excellently  on  eggs  and  salmon-steaks;  I 
had  no  cares  to  speak  of,  and  my  prospects  were 
not  uninviting.  But  in  spite  of  myself  the  land- 
scape began  to  take  me  in  thrall  and  crush  me. 
The  silent  vanished  peoples  of  the  hills  seemed 
to  be  stirring;  dark  primeval  faces  seemed  to 
stare  at  me  from  behind  boulders  and  jags  of 
rock.  The  place  was  so  still,  so  free  from  the 
cheerful  clamour  of  nesting  birds,  that  it 
seemed  a  temenos  sacred  to  some  old-world  god. 
At  my  feet  the  lochs  lapped  ceaselessly;  but  the 
waters  were  so  dark  that  one  could  not  see  bot- 
tom a  foot  from  the  edge.  On  my  right  the 
links  of  green  told  of  snake-like  mires  waiting 
to  crush  the  unwary  wanderer.  It  seemed  to 
me  for  the  moment  a  land  of  death,  where  the 
tongues  of  the  dead  cried  aloud  for  recognition. 
My  whole  morning's  walk  was  full  of  such 
fancies.  I  lit  a  pipe  to  cheer  me,  but  the  things 
would  not  be  got  rid  of.  I  thought  of  the 
Gaels  who  had  held  those  fastnesses;  I  thought 
of  the  Britons  before  them,  who  yielded  to  their 
advent.  They  were  all  strong  peoples  in  their 
day,  and  now  they  had  gone  the  way  of  the  earth. 

1 6 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

They  had  left  their  mark  on  the  levels  of  the 
glens  and  on  the  more  habitable  uplands,  both 
in  names  and  in  actual  forts,  and  graves  where 
men  might  still  dig  curios.  But  the  hills — 
that  black  stony  amphitheatre  before  me — it 
seemed  strange  that  the  hills  bore  no  traces  of 
them.  And  then  with  some  uneasiness  I  re- 
flected on  that  older  and  stranger  race  who  were 
said  to  have  held  the  hill-tops.  The  Picts,  the 
Picti — ^what  in  the  name  of  goodness  were  they? 
They  had  troubled  me  in  all  my  studies,  a  sort 
of  blank  wall  to  put  an  end  to  speculation.  We 
knew  nothing  of  them  save  certain  strange  names 
which  men  called  Pictish,  the  names  of  those 
hills  in  front  of  me — the  Muneraw,  the  Yirnie, 
the  Calmarton.  They  were  the  corpus  vile  for 
learned  experiment;  but  Heaven  alone  knew 
what  dark  abyss  of  savagery  once  yawned  in  the 
midst  of  this  desert. 

And  then  I  remembered  the  crazy  theories 
of  a  pupil  of  mine  at  St  Chad's,  the  son  of  a 
small  landowner  on  the  Aller,  a  young  gentle- 
man who  had  spent  his  substance  too  freely  at 
Oxford,  and  was  now  dreeing  his  weird  in  the 
Backwoods.  He  had  been  no  scholar;  but  a  cer- 
tain imagination  marked  all  his  doings,  and  of  a 
Sunday  night  he  would  come  and  talk  to  me  of 

17 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

the  North.  The  Picts  were  his  special  subject, 
and  his  ideas  were  mad.  "Listen  to  me,"  he 
would  say,  when  I  had  mixed  him  toddy  and 
given  him  one  of  my  cigars ;  "I  believe  there  are 
traces — ay,  and  more  than  traces — of  an  old  cul- 
ture lurking  in  those  hills  and  waiting  to  be  dis- 
covered. We  never  hear  of  the  Picts  being 
driven  from  the  hills.  The  Britons  drove  them 
from  the  lowlands,  the  Gaels  from  Ireland  did 
the  same  for  the  Britons;  but  the  hills  were 
left  unmolested.  We  hear  of  no  one  going  near 
them  except  outlaws  and  tinklers.  And  in  that 
very  place  you  have  the  strangest  mythology. 
Take  the  story  of  the  Brownie.  What  is  that  but 
the  story  of  a  little  swart  man  of  uncommon 
strength  and  cleverness,  who  does  good  and  ill 
indiscriminately,  and  then  disappears?  There 
are  many  scholars,  as  you  yourself  confess,  who 
think  that  the  origin  of  the  Brownie  was  in  some 
mad  belief  in  the  old  race  of  the  Picts,  which 
still  survived  somewhere  in  the  hills.  And  do 
we  not  hear  of  the  Brownie  in  authentic  rec- 
ords right  down  to  the  year  1756?  After  that, 
when  people  grew  more  incredulous,  it  is 
natural  that  the  belief  should  have  begun  to  die 
out ;  but  I  do  not  see  why  stray  traces  should  not 
have  survived  till  late." 

18 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

"Do  you  not  see  what  that  means?"  I  had 
said  in  mock  gravity.  "Those  same  hills  are, 
if  anything,  less  known  now  than  they  were  a 
hundred  years  ago.  Why  should  not  your  Picts 
or  Brownies  be  living  to  this  day?" 

"Why  not,  indeed?"  he  had  rejoined,  in  all 
seriousness. 

I  laughed,  and  he  went  to  his  rooms  and  re- 
turned with  a  large  leather-bound  book.  It  was 
lettered,  in  the  rococo  style  of  a  young  man's 
taste,  ^Glimpses  of  the  Unknown,'  and  some  of 
the  said  glimpses  he  proceeded  to  impart  to  me. 
It  was  not  pleasant  reading;  indeed,  I  had  rarely 
heard  anything  so  well  fitted  to  shatter  sensitive 
nerves.  The  early  part  consisted  of  folk-tales 
and  folk-sayings,  some  of  them  wholly  obscure, 
some  of  them  with  a  glint  of  meaning,  but  all 
of  them  with  some  hint  of  a  mystery  in  the  hills. 
I  heard  the  Brownie  story  in  countless  versions. 
Now  the  thing  was  a  friendly  little  man,  who 
wore  grey  breeches  and  lived  on  brose;  now  he 
was  a  twisted  being,  the  sight  of  which  made  the 
ewes  miscarry  in  the  lambing-time.  But  the 
second  part  was  the  stranger,  for  it  was  made 
up  of  actual  tales,  most  of  them  with  date  and 
place  appended.  It  was  a  most  Bedlamite  cata- 
logue of  horrors,  which,  if  true,  made  the  whole- 

19 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

some  moors  a  place  instinct  with  tragedy.  Some 
told  of  children  carried  away  from  villages, 
even  from  towns,  on  the  verge  of  the  uplands. 
In  almost  every  case  they  were  girls,  and  the 
strange  fact  was  their  utter  disappearance. 
Two  little  girls  would  be  coming  home  from 
school,  would  be  seen  last  by  a  neighbour  just 
where  the  road  crossed  a  patch  of  heath  or  en- 
tered a  wood  and  then — no  human  eye  ever  saw 
them  again.  Children's  cries  had  startled  out- 
lying shepherds  in  the  night,  and  when  they 
had  rushed  to  the  door  they  could  hear  nothing 
but  the  night  wind.  The  instances  of  such  dis- 
appearances were  not  very  common — perhaps 
once  in  twenty  years — but  they  were  confined  to 
this  one  tract  of  country,  and  came  in  a  sort  of 
fixed  progression  from  the  middle  of  last  cen- 
tury, when  the  record  began.  But  this  was  only 
one  side  of  the  history.  The  latter  part  was  all 
devoted  to  a  chronicle  of  crimes  which  had  gone 
unpunished,  seeing  that  no  hand  had  ever  been 
traced.  The  list  was  fuller  in  last  century;^  in 
the  earlier  years  of  the  present  it  had  dwindled; 
then  came  a  revival  about  the  'Fifties;  and  now 
again  in  our  own  time  it  had  sunk  low.    At  the 

^The  narrative  of  Mr.  Graves  was  written  in  the  year 
1898. 

20 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

little  cottage  of  Auchterbrean,  on  the  roadside 
in  Glen  Aller,  a  labourer's  wife  had  been  found 
pierced  to  the  heart.  It  was  thought  to  be  a 
case  of  a  woman^s  jealousy,  and  her  neighbour 
was  accused,  convicted,  and  hanged.  The 
woman,  to  be  sure,  denied  the  charge  with  her 
last  breath;  but  circumstantial  evidence  seemed 
sufficiently  strong  against  hen  Yet  some  peo- 
ple in  the  glen  believed  her  guiltless.  In  par- 
ticular, the  carrier  who  had  found  the  dead 
woman  declared  that  the  way  in  which  her 
neighbour  received  the  news  was  a  sufficient 
proof  of  innocence-;  and  the  doctor  who  was 
first  summoned  professed  himself  unable  to  tell 
with  what  instrument  the  wound  had  been  given. 
But  this  was  all  before  the  days  of  expert  evi- 
dence, so  the  woman  had  been  hanged  without 
scruple.  Then  there  had  been  another  story  of 
peculiar  horror,  telling  of  the  death  of  an  old 
man  at  some  little  lonely  shieling  called  Car- 
rickfey.  But  at  this  point  I  had  risen  in  protest, 
and  made  to  drive  the  young  idiot  from  my 
room. 

"It  was  my  grandfather  who  collected  most 
of  them,"  he  said.    "He  had  theories,^  but  peo- 

^  In  the  light  of  subsequent  events  I  have  jotted  down 
the  materials  to  which  I  refer.     The  last  authentic  record 

21 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

pie  called  him  mad,  so  he  was  wise  enough  to 
hold  his  tongue.  My  father  declares  the  whole 
thing  mania;  but  I  rescued  the  book,  had  it 
bound,  and  added  to  the  collection.  It  is  a 
queer  hobby;  but,  as  I  say,  I  have  theories,  and 
there  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth " 

But  at  this  he  heard  a  friend's  voice  in  the 
Quad.,  and  dived  out,  leaving  the  banal  quo- 
tation unfinished. 

Strange  though  it  may  seem,  this  madness 
kept  coming  back  to  me  as  I  crossed  the  last  few 
miles  of  moor.  I  was  now  on  a  rough  table- 
land, the  watershed  between  two  lochs,  and  be- 

of  the  Brownie  is  in  the  narrative  of  the  shepherd  of 
Clachlands,  taken  down  towards  the  close  of  last  century 
by  the  Reverend  Mr.  Gillespie,  minister  of  Allerkirk,  and 
included  by  him  in  his  'Songs  and  Legends  of  Glen  Aller.* 
The  authorities  on  the  strange  carrying-away  of  children  are 
to  be  found  in  a  series  of  articles  in  a  local  paper,  the  *Aller- 
foot  Advertiser,'  September  and  October  1878,  and  a  curious 
book  published  anonymously  at  Edinburgh  in  1848,  entitled 
'The  Weathergaw.'  The  records  of  the  unexplained  mur- 
ders in  the  same  neighbourhood  are  all  contained  in  Mr. 
Fordoun's  'Theory  of  Expert  Evidence,'  and  an  attack  on 
the  book  in  the  'Law  Review'  for  June  1881.  The  Car- 
rickfey  case  has  a  pamphlet  to  itself — now  extremely  rare — 
a  copy  of  which  was  recently  obtained  in  a  bookseller's  shop 
in  Dumfries  by  a  well-known  antiquary,  and  presented  to 
the  library  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  Edinburgh. 

22 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

yond  and  above  me  rose  the  stony  backs  of  the 
hills.  The  burns  fell  down  in  a  chaos  of  granite 
boulders,  and  huge  slabs  of  grey  stone  lay  flat 
and  tumbled  in  the  heather.  The  full  waters 
looked  prosperously  for  my  fishing,  and  I  be- 
gan to  forget  all  fancies  in  anticipation  of  sport. 

Then  suddenly  in  a  hollow  of  land  I  came  on 
a  ruined  cottage.  It  had  been  a  very  small  place, 
but  the  walls  were  still  half-erect,  and  the  lit- 
tle moorland  garden  was  outlined  on  the  turf. 
A  lonely  apple-tree,  twisted  and  gnarled  with 
winds,  stood  in  the  midst. 

From  higher  up  on  the  hill  I  heard  a  loud 
roar,  and  I  knew  my  excellent  friend  the  shep- 
herd of  Farawa,  who  had  come  thus  far  to  meet 
me.  He  greeted  me  with  the  boisterous  embar- 
rassment which  was  his  way  of  prefacing  hos- 
pitality. A  grave  reserved  man  at  other  times, 
on  such  occasions  he  thought  it  proper  to  re- 
lapse into  hilarity.  I  fell  into  step  with  him,  and 
we  set  off  for  his  dwelling.  But  first  I  had  the 
curiosity  to  look  back  to  the  tumble-down  cot- 
tage and  ask  him  its  name. 

A  queer  look  came  into  his  eyes.  "They  ca' 
the  place  Carrickfey,"  he  said.  "Naebody  has 
daured  to  bide  there  this  twenty  year  sin' — but 
I  see  ye  ken  the  story."    And,  as  if  glad  to  leave 

23 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

the  subject,  he  hastened  to  discourse  on  fishing. 

II:  TELLS  OF  AN  EVENING's  TALK 

The  shepherd  was  a  masterful  man;  tall,  save 
for  the  stoop  which  belongs  to  all  moorland 
folk,  and  active  as  a  wild  goat.  He  was  not  a 
new  importation,  nor  did  he  belong  to  the  place; 
for  his  people  had  lived  in  the  remote  Borders, 
and  he  had  come  as  a  boy  to  this  shieling  of 
Farawa.  He  was  unmarried,  but  an  elderly 
sister  lived  with  him  and  cooked  his  meals.  He 
was  reputed  to  be  extraordinarily  skilful  in  his 
trade;  I  know  for  a  fact  that  he  was  in  his  way 
a  keen  sportsman ;  and  his  few  neighbours  gave 
him  credit  for  a  sincere  piety.  Doubtless  this 
last  report  was  due  in  part  to  his  silence,  for  after 
his  first  greeting  he  was  wont  to  relapse  into  a 
singular  taciturnity.  As  we  strode  across  the 
heather  he  gave  me  a  short  outline  of  his  year's 
lambing.  *Tive  pair  o'  twins  yestreen,  twae 
this  morn;  that  makes  thirty-five  yowes  that  hae 
lambed  since  the  Sabbath.  I'll  dae  weel  if 
God's  willin'."  Then,  as  I  looked  towards  the 
hilltops  whence  the  thin  mist  of  morn  was  trail- 
ing, he  followed  my  gaze.  ^^See,"  he  said  with 
uplifted  crook — "see  that  sicht.  Is  that  no  what 
is  written  of  in  the  Bible  when  it  says,  The. 

24 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

mountains  do  smoke.' "  And  with  this  piece  of 
exegesis  he  finished  his  talk,  and  in  a  little  we 
were  at  the  cottage. 

It  was  a  small  enough  dwelling  in  truth,  and 
yet  large  for  a  moorland  house,  for  it  had  a 
garret  below  the  thatch,  which  was  given  up  to 
my  sole  enjoyment.  Below  was  the  wide  kitchen 
with  box-beds,  and  next  to  it  the  inevitable  sec- 
ond room,  also  with  its  cupboard  sleeping-places. 
The  interior  was  very  clean,  and  yet  I  remem- 
ber to  have  been  struck  with  the  faint  musty 
smell  which  is  inseparable  from  moorland  dwell- 
ings. The  kitchen  pleased  me  best,  for  there 
the  great  rafters  were  black  with  peat-reek,  and 
the  uncovered  stone  floor,  on  which  the  fire 
gleamed  dully,  gave  an  air  of  primeval  sim- 
plicity. But  the  walls  spoiled  all,  for'  tawdry 
things  of  to-day  had  penetrated  even  there. 
Some  grocers'  almanacs — years  old — hung  in 
places  of  honour,  and  an  extraordinary  litho- 
graph of  the  Royal  Family  in  its  youth.  And 
this,  mind  you,  between  crooks  and  fishing-rods 
and  old  guns,  and  horns  of  sheep  and  deer. 

The  life  for  the  first  day  or  two  was  regular 
and  placid.  I  was  up  early,  breakfasted  on 
porridge  (a  dish  which  I  detest),  and  then  off 
to  the  lochs  and  streams.     At  first  my  sport 

25 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

prospered  mightily.  With  a  drake-wing  I 
killed  a  salmon  of  seventeen  pounds,  and  the 
next  day  had  a  fine  basket  of  trout  from  a  hill- 
burn.  Then  for  no  earthly  reason  the  weather 
changed.  A  bitter  wind  came  out  of  the  north- 
east, bringing  showers  of  snow  and  stinging  hail, 
and  lashing  the  waters  into  storm.  It  was  now 
farewell  to  fly-fishing.  For  a  day  or  two  I  tried 
trolling  with  the  minnow  on  the  lochs,  but  it 
was  poor  sport,  for  I  had  no  boat,  and  the  edges 
were  soft  and  mossy.  Then  in  disgust  I  gave  up 
the  attempt,  went  back  to  the  cottage,  lit  my  big- 
gest pipe,  and  sat  down  with  a  book  to  await 
the  turn  of  the  weather. 

The  shepherd  was  out  from  morning  till  night 
at  his  work,  and  when  he  came  in  at  last,  dog- 
tired,  his  face  would  be  set  and  hard,  and  his 
eyes  heavy  with  sleep.  The  strangeness  of  the 
man  grew  upon  me.  He  had  a  shrewd  brain 
beneath  his  thatch  of  hair,  for  I  had  tried  him 
once  or  twice,  and  found  him  abundantly  intel- 
ligent. He  had  some  smattering  of  an  educa- 
tion, like  all  Scottish  peasants,  and,  as  I  have 
said,  he  was  deeply  religious.  I  set  him  down 
as  a  fine  type  of  his  class,  sober,  serious,  keenly 
critical,  free  from  the  bondage  of  superstition. 
But  I  rarely  saw  him,  and  our  talk  was  chiefly 

26 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

in  monosyllables — short  interjected  accounts  of 
the  number  of  lambs  dead  or  alive  on  the  hill. 
Then  he  would  produce  a  pencil  and  note-book, 
and  be  immersed  in  some  calculation;  and  finally 
he  would  be  revealed  sleeping  heavily  in  his 
chair,  till  his  sister  wakened  him,  and  he  stum- 
bled off  to  bed. 

So  much  for  the  ordinary  course  of  life;  but 
one  day — the  second  I  think  of  the  bad  weather 
— the  extraordinary  happened:  The  storm  had 
passed  in  the  afternoon  into  a  resolute  and  blind- 
ing snow,  and  the  shepherd,  finding  it  hopeless 
on  the  hill,  came  home  about  three  o'clock.  I 
could  make  out  from  his  way  of  entering  that  he 
was  in  a  great  temper.  He  kicked  his  feet 
savagely  against  the  door-post.  Then  he  swore 
at  his  dogs,  a  thing  I  had  never  heard  him  do  be- 
fore. "Hell!"  he  cried,  "can  ye  no  keep  out  o' 
my  road,  ye  britts?"  Then  he  came  sullenly  into 
the  kitchen,  thawed  his  numbed  hands  at  the 
fire,  and  sat  down  to  his  meal. 

I  made  some  aimless  remark  about  the 
weather. 

"Death  to  man  and  beast,"  he  grunted.  "I 
hae  got  the  sheep  doun  frae  the  hill,  but  the 
lambs  will  never  thole  this.  We  maun  pray  that 
it  will  no  last." 

27 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

His  sister  came  in  with  some  dish.  "Mar- 
git,"  he  cried,  "three  lambs  away  this  morning, 
and  three  deid  wi'  the  hole  in  the  throat." 

The  woman's  face  visibly  paled.  "Guid  help 
us,  Adam ;  that  hasna  happened  this  three  year." 

"It  has  happened  noo,"  he  said,  surlily.  "But, 
by  God!  if  it  happens  again  I'll  gang  mysel'  to 
the  Scarts  o'  the  Muneraw." 

"O  Adam!"  the  woman  cried  shrilly,  "baud 
your  tongue.  Ye  kenna  wha  hears  ye."  And 
with  a  frightened  glance  at  me  she  left  the  room. 

I  asked  no  questions,  but  waited  till  the  shep- 
herd's anger  should  cool.  But  the  cloud  did  not 
pass  so  lightly.  When  he  had  finished  his  din- 
ner he  pulled  his  chair  to  the  fire  and  sat  star- 
ing moodily.  He  made  some  sort  of  apology  to 
me  for  his  conduct.  "I'm  sore  troubled,  sir; 
but  I'm  vexed  ye  should  see  me  like  this.  May- 
be things  will  be  better  the  morn."  And  then, 
lighting  his  short  black  pipe,  he  resigned  him- 
self to  his  meditations. 

But  he  could  not  keep  quiet.  Some  nervous 
unrest  seemed  to  have  possessed  the  man.  He 
got  up  with  a  start  and  went  to  the  window, 
where  the  snow  was  drifting  unsteadily  past.  As 
he  stared  out  into  the  storm  I  heard  him  mutter 

28 


4\ 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

to  himself,  "Three  away,   God  help  me,   and 
three  wi'  the  hole  in  the  throat." 

Then  he  turned  round  to  me  abruptly.  I  was 
jotting  down  notes  for  an  article  I  contemplated 
in  the  'Revue  Celtique,'  so  my  thoughts  were 
far  away  from  the  present.  The  man  recalled 
me  by  demanding  fiercely,  "Do  ye  believe  in 
God?" 

I  gave  him  some  sort  of  answer  in  the  af- 
firmative. 

''Then  do  ye  believe  in  the  Devil?"  he  asked. 

The  reply  must  have  been  less  satisfactory,  for 
he  came  forward  and  flung  himself  violently 
into  the  chair  before  me. 

"What  do  ye  ken  about  it?"  he  cried.  "You 
that  bides  in  a  southern  toun,  what  can  ye  ken 
o'  the  God  that  works  in  thae  hills  and  the  Devil 
— uy,  the  manifold  devils — that  He  suffers  to 
bide  here?  I  tell  ye,  man,  that  if  ye  had  seen 
what  I  have  seen  ye  wad  be  on  your  knees  at  this 
moment  praying  to  God  to  pardon  your  unbe- 
lief. There  are  devils  at  the  back  o'  every  stane 
and  hidin'  in  every  cleuch,  and  it's  by  the  grace 
o'  God  alone  that  a  man  is  alive  upon  the  earth." 
His  voice  had  risen  high  and  shrill,  and  then 
suddenly  he  cast  a  frightened  glance  towards  the 
window  and  was  silent. 

29 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

I  began  to  think  that  the  man's  wits  were  un- 
hinged, and  the  thought  did  not  give  me  satis- 
faction. I  had  no  relish  for  the  prospect  of  be- 
ing left  alone  in  this  moorland  dwelling  with  the 
cheerful  company  of  a  maniac.  But  his  next 
movements  reassured  me.  He  was  clearly  only 
dead-tired,  for  he  fell  sound  asleep  in  his  chair, 
and  by  the  time  his  sister  brought  tea  and 
wakened  him,  he  seemed  to  have  got  the  better 
of  his  excitement. 

When  the  window  was  shuttered  and  the  lamp 
lit,  I  sat  myself  again  to  the  completion  of  my 
notes.  The  shepherd  had  got  out  his  Bible,  and 
was  solemnly  reading  with  one  great  finger 
travelling  down  the  lines.  He  was  smoking,  and 
whenever  some  text  came  home  to  him  with 
power  he  would  make  pretence  to  underline  it 
with  the  end  of  the  stem.  Soon  I  had  finished 
the  work  I  desired,  and,  my  mind  being  full  of 
my  pet  hobby,  I  fell  into  an  inquisitive  mood, 
and  began  to  question  the  solemn  man  opposite 
on  the  antiquities  of  the  place. 

He  stared  stupidly  at  me  when  I  asked  him 
concerning  monuments  or  ancient  weapons. 

"I  kenna,"  said  he.  "There's  a  heap  o'  queer 
things  in  the  hills." 

"This  place  should  be  a  centre  for  such  relics. 
30 


m 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

You  know  that  the  name  of  the  hill  behind  the 
house,  as  far  as  I  can  make  it  out,  means  the 
TIace  of  the  Little  Men.'  It  is  a  good  Gaelic 
word,  though  there  is  some  doubt  about  its  exact 
interpretation.  But  clearly  the  Gaelic  peoples 
did  not  speak  of  themselves  when  they  gave  the 
name;  they  must  have  referred  to  some  older 
and  stranger  population." 

The  shepherd  looked  at  me  dully,  as  not  un- 
derstanding. 

"It  is  partly  this  fact — ^besides  the  fishing,  of 
course — ^which  interests  me  in  this  countryside," 
said  I,  gaily. 

Again  he  cast  the  same  queer  frightened 
glance  towards  the  window.  "If  ye'U  tak  the 
advice  of  an  aulder  man,"  he  said,  slowly, 
"yc'll  let  well  alane  and  no  meddle  wi'  uncanny 
things." 

I  laughed  pleasantly,  for  at  last  I  had  found 
out  my  hard-headed  host  in  a  piece  of  childish- 
ness. "Why,  I  thought  that  you  of  all  men 
would  be  free  from  superstition." 

"What  do  ye  call  supersteetion?"    he  asked. 

"A  belief  in  old  wives'  tales,"  said  I,  "a  trust 
in  the  crude  supernatural  and  the  patently  im- 
possible." 

He  looked  at  me  beneath  his  shaggy  brows. 
31 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

"How  do  ye  ken  what  is  impossible?  Mind  ye, 
sir,  ye're  no  in  the  toun  just  now,  but  in  the  thick 
of  the  wild  hills." 

"But,  hang  it  all,  man,"  I  cried,  "you  don't 
mean  to  say  that  you  believe  in  that  sort  of  thing? 
I  am  prepared  for  many  things  up  here,  but  not 
for  the  Brownie, — though,  to  be  sure,  if  one 
could  meet  him  in  the  flesh,  it  would  be  rather 
pleasant  than  otherwise,  for  he  was  a  com- 
panionable sort  of  fellow.", 

"When  a  thing  pits  the  fear  o'  death  on  a  man 
he  aye  speaks  well  of  it." 

It  was  true — the  Eumenides  and  the  Good 
Folk  over  again;  and  I  awoke  with  interest  to 
the  fact  that  the  conversation  was  getting  into 
strange  channels. 

The  shepherd  moved  uneasily  in  his  chair.  "I 
am  a  man  that  fears  God,  and  has  nae  time  for 
daft  stories;  but  I  havena  traivelled  the  hills 
for  twenty  years  wi'  my  een  shut.  If  I  say  that 
I  could  tell  ye  stories  o'  faces  seen  in  the  mist, 
and  queer  things  that  have  knocked  against  me 
in  the  snaw,  wad  ye  believe  me?  I  wager  ye 
wadna.  Ye  wad  say  I  had  been  drunk,  and  yet 
I  am  a  God-fearing  temperate  man." 

He  rose  and  went  to  a  cupboard,  unlocked  it, 
and  brought  out  something  in  his  hand,  which 

32 


i> 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

he  held  out  to  me.    I  took  it  with  some  curiosity, 
and  found  that  it  was  a  flint  arrow-head. 

Clearly  a  flint  arrow-head,  and  yet  like  none 
that  I  had  ever  seen  in  any  collection.  For  one 
thing  it  was  larger,  and  the  barb  less  clumsily 
thick.  More,  the  chipping  was  new,  or  com- 
paratively so ;  this  thing  had  not  stood  the  wear 
of  fifteen  hundred  years  among  the  stones  of  the 
hillside.  Now  there  are,  I  regret  to  say,  insti- 
tutions which  manufacture  primitive  relics;  but 
it  is  not  hard  for  a  practised  eye  to  see  the  dif- 
ference. The  chipping  has  either  a  regularity 
and  a  balance  which  is  unknown  in  the  real 
thing,  or  the  rudeness  has  been  overdone,  and 
the  result  is  an  implement  incapable  of  harm- 
ing a  mortal  creature.  But  this  was  the  real 
thing  if  it  ever  existed;  and  yet — I  was  prepared 
to  swear  on  my  reputation  that  it  was  not  half  a 
century  old. 

"Where  did  you  get  this?"  I  asked  with  some 
nervousness. 

"1  hae  a  story  about  that,"  said  the  shepherd. 
"Outside  the  door  there  ye  can  see  a  muckle  flat 
stane  aside  the  buchts.  One  simmer  nicht  I  was 
sitting  there  smoking  till  the  dark,  and  I  wager 
there  was  naething  on  the  stane  then.  But  that 
same  nicht  I  awoke  wi'  a  queer  thocht,  as  if  there 

33 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

were  folk  moving  around  the  hoose — folk  that 
didna  mak'  muckle  noise.  I  mind  o'  lookin'  out 
o^  the  windy,  and  I  could  hae  sworn  I  saw  some- 
thing black  movin'  amang  the  heather  and  intil 
the  buchts.  Now  I  had  maybe  threescore  o' 
lambs  there  that  nicht,  for  I  had  to  tak'  them 
many  miles  off  in  the  early  morning.  Weel, 
when  I  gets  up  about  four  o'clock  and  gangs  out, 
as  I  am  passing  the  muckle  stane  I  finds  this  bit 
errow.  That's  come  here  in  the  nicht,'  says 
I,  and  I  wunnered  a  wee  and  put  it  in  my  pouch. 
But  when  I  came  to  my  faulds  what  did  I  see? 
Five  o'  my  best  hoggs  were  away,  and  three  mair 
were  lying  deid  wi'  a  hole  in  their  throat." 

'Who  in  the  world ?"    I  began. 

"Dinna  ask,"  said  he.  "If  I  aince  sterted  to 
speir  about  thae  maitters,  I  wadna  keep  my  rea- 
son." 

"Then  that  was  what  happened  on  the  hill  this 
morning?" 

"Even  sae,  and  it  has  happened  mair  than 
aince  sin'  that  time.  It's  the  most  uncanny 
slaughter,  for  sheep-stealing  I  can  understand, 
but  no  this  pricking  o'  the  puir  beasts'  wizands. 
I  kenna  how  they  dae't  either,  for  it's  no  wi'  a 
knife  or  any  common  tool." 

"Have  you  never  tried  to  follow  the  thieves?" 
34 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

''Have  I  no?"  he  asked,  grimly.  "If  it  had 
been  common  sheep-stealers  I  wad  hae  had  them 
by  the  heels,  though  I  had  followed  them  a  hun- 
dred miles.  But  this  is  no  common.  I've 
tracked  them,  and  it's  ill  they  are  to  track;  but 
I  never  got  beyond  ae  place,  and  that  was  the 
Scarts  o'  the  Muneraw  that  ye've  heard  me 
speak  o'." 

'But  who  in  Heaven's  name  are  the  people? 
Tinklers  or  poachers  or  what?" 

''Ay,"  said  he,  drily.  "Even  so.  Tinklers  and 
poachers  whae  wark  wi'  stane  errows  and  kill 
sheep  by  a  hole  in  their  throat.  Lord,  I  kenna 
what  they  are,  unless  the  Muckle  Deil  himsel'." 

The  conversation  had  passed  beyond  my  com- 
prehension. In  this  prosaic  hard-headed  man 
I  had  come  on  the  dead-rock  of  superstition  and 
blind  fear. 

"That  is  only  the  story  of  the  Brownie  over 
again,  and  he  is  an  exploded  myth,"  I  said, 
laughing. 

"Are  ye  the  man  that  exploded  it?"  said  the 
shepherd,  rudely.  "I  trow  no,  neither  you  nor 
on^  ither.  My  bonny  man,  if  ye  lived  a  twal- 
month  in  thae  hills,  ye  wad  sing  saf  ter  about  ex- 
ploded myths,  as  ye  call  them." 

"I  tell  you  what  I  would  do,"  said  I.  "If  I 
35 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

lost  sheep  as  you  lose  them,  I  would  go  up  the 
Scarts  of  the  Muneraw  and  never  rest  till  I  had 
settled  the  question  once  and  for  all."  I  spoke 
hotly,  for  I  was  vexed  by  the  man's  childish  fear. 

"I  daresay  ye  wad,"  he  said,  slowly.  "But 
then  I  am  no  you,  and  maybe  I  ken  mair  o'  what 
is  in  the  Scarts  o'  the  Muneraw.  Maybe  I  ken 
that  whilk,  if  ye  kenned  it,  wad  send  ye  back  to 
the  South  Country  wi'  your  hert  in  your  mouth. 
But,  as  I  say,  I  am  no  sae  brave  as  you,  for  I 
saw  something  in  the  first  year  o'  my  herding 
here  which  put  the  terror  o'  God  on  me,  and 
makes  me  a  fearfu'  man  to  this  day.  Ye  ken 
the  story  o'  the  gudeman  o'  Carrickfey?" 

I  nodded. 

"Weel,  I  was  the  man  that  fand  him.  I  had 
seen  the  deid  afore  and  I've  seen  them  since. 
But  never  have  I  seen  aucht  like  the  look  in  that 
man's  een.  What  he  saw  at  his  death  I  may  see 
the  morn,  so  I  walk  before  the  Lord  in  fear." 

Then  he  rose  and  stretched  himself.  "It's 
bedding-time,  for  I  maun  be  up  at  three,"  and 
with  a  short  good  night  he  left  the  room. 

Ill :   THE  SCARTS  OF  THE  MUNERAW 

The  next  morning  was  fine,  for  the  snow  had 
been  intermittent,  and  had  soon  melted  except 

36 


% 


NO-MANS-LAND 

in  the  high  corries.  True,  it  was  deceptive 
weather,  for  the  wind  had  gone  to  the  rainy 
south-west,  and  the  masses  of  cloud  on  that  hori- 
zon boded  ill  for  the  afternoon.  But  some  days' 
inaction  had  made  me  keen  for  a  chance  of  sport, 
so  I  rose  with  the  shepherd  and  set  ©ut  for  the 
day. 

He  asked  me  where  I  proposed  to  begin. 

I  told  him  the  tarn  called  the  Loch  o'  the 
Threshes,  which  lies  over  the  back  of  the  Mune- 
raw  on  another  watershed.  It  is  on  the  ground 
of  the  Rhynns  Forest,  and  I  had  fished  it  of  old 
from  the  Forest  House.  I  knew  the  merits  of  the 
trout,  and  I  knew  its  virtues  in  a  south-west 
wind,  so  I  had  resolved  to  go  thus  far  afield. 

The  shepherd  heard  the  name  in  silence. 
"Your  best  road  will  be  ower  that  rig,  and  syne 
on  to  the  water  o'  Caulds.  Keep  abune  the  moss 
till  ye  come  to  the  place  they  ca'  the  Nick  o'  the 
Threshes.  That  will  take  ye  to  the  very  loch- 
side,  but  if  s  a  lang  road  and  a  sair.'' 

The  morning  was  breaking  over  the  bleak 
hills.  Little  clouds  drifted  athwart  the  corries, 
and  wisps  of  haze  fluttered  from  the  peaks.  A 
great  rosy  flush  lay  over  one  side  of  the  glen, 
which  caught  the  edge  of  the  sluggish  bog-pools 
and  turned  them  to  fire.    Never  before  had  I 

37 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

seen  the  mountain-land  so  clear,  for  far  back  into 
the  east  and  west  I  saw  mountain-tops  set  as  close 
as  flowers  in  a  border,  black  crags  seamed  with 
silver  lines  which  I  knew  for  mighty  waterfalls, 
and  below  at  my  feet  the  lower  slopes  fresh  with 
the  dewy  green  of  spring.  A  name  stuck  in  my 
memory  from  the  last  night's  talk. 

*Where  are  the  Scarts  of  the  Muneraw?"  I 
asked. 

The  shepherd  pointed  to  the  great  hill  which 
bears  the  name,  and  w^hich  lies,  a  huge  mass, 
above  the  watershed. 

"D'ye  see  yon  corrie  at  the  east  that  runs 
straucht  up  the  side?  It  looks  a  bit  scart,  but  it's 
sae  deep  that  it's  aye  derk  at  the  bottom  o't. 
Weel,  at  the  tap  o'  the  rig  it  meets  anither  cor- 
rie that  runs  doun  the  ither  side,  and  that  one 
they  ca'  the  Scarts.  There  is  a  sort  o'  burn  in 
it  that  flows  intil  the  Dule  and  sae  intil  the  Al- 
ler,  and,  indeed,  if  ye  were  gaun  there  it  wad  be 
from  Aller  Glen  that  your  best  road  wad  lie. 
But  it's  an  ill  bit,  and  ye'll  be  sair  guidit  if  ye 
try't." 

There  he  left  me  and  went  across  the  glen, 
while  I  struck  upwards  over  the  ridge.  At  the 
top  I  halted  and  looked  down  on  the  wide  glen 
of  the  Caulds,  which  there  is  little  better  th^.n 

38 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

a  bog,  but  lower  down  grows  into  a  green  pas- 
toral valley.  The  great  Muneraw  still  dom- 
inated the  landscape,  and  the  black  scaur  on  its 
side  seemed  blacker  than  before.  The  place 
fascinated  me,  for  in  that  fresh  morning  air 
the  shepherd's  fears  seemed  monstrous.  *'Some 
day,"  said  I  to  myself,  "I  will  go  and  explore 
the  whole  of  that  mighty  hill."  Then  I  de- 
scended and  struggled  over  the  moss,  found  the 
Nick,  and  in  two  hours'  time  was  on  the  loch's 
edge. 

I  have  little  in  the  way  of  good  to  report  of 
the  fishing.  For  perhaps  one  hour  the  trout  took 
well ;  after  that  they  sulked  steadily  for  the  day. 
The  promise,  too,  of  fine  weather  had  been  de- 
ceptive. By  midday  the  rain  was  falling  in  that 
soft  soaking  fashion  which  gives  no  hope  of 
clearing.  The  mist  was  down  to  the  edge  of  the 
water,  and  I  cast  my  flies  into  a  blind  sea  of 
white.  It  was  hopeless  work,  and  yet  from  a  sort 
of  ill-temper  I  stuck  to  it  long  after  my  better 
judgment  had  warned  me  of  its  folly.  At  last, 
about  three  in  the  afternoon,  I  struck  my  camp, 
and  prepared  myself  for  a  long  and  toilsome 
retreat. 

And  long  and  toilsome  it  was  beyond  anything 
I  had  ever  encountered.    Had  I  had  a  vestige 

39 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

of  sense  I  would  have  followed  the  burn 
from  the  loch  down  to  the  Forest  House.  The 
place  was  shut  up,  but  the  keeper  would  gladly 
have  given  me  shelter  for  the  night.  But  foolish 
pride  was  too  strong  in  me.  I  had  found  my 
road  in  mist  before,  and  could  do  it  again. 

Before  I  got  to  the  top  of  the  hill  I  had  re- 
pented my  decision ;  when  I  got  there  I  repented 
it  more.  For  below  me  was  a  dizzy  chaos  of 
grey;  there  was  no  landmark  visible;  and  before 
me  I  knew  was  the  bog  through  which  the 
Caulds  Water  twined.  I  had  crossed  it  with 
some  trouble  in  the  morning,  but  then  I  had  light 
to  pick  my  steps.  Now  I  could  only  stumble 
on,  and  in  five  minutes  I  might  be  in  a  bog- 
hole,  and  in  five  more  in  a  better  world. 

But  there  was  no  help  to  be  got  from  hesita- 
tion, so  with  a  rueful  courage  I  set  off.  The 
place  was  if  possible  worse  than  I  had  feared. 
Wading  up  to  the  knees  with  nothing  before  you 
but  a  blank  wall  of  mist  and  the  cheerful  con- 
sciousness that  your  next  step  may  be  your  last 
— such  was  my  state  for  one  weary  mile.  The 
stream  itself  was  high,  and  rose  to  my  armpits, 
and  once  and  again  I  only  saved  myself  by  a 
violent  leap  backwards  from  a  pitiless  green 

40 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

slough.    But  at  last  it  was  past,  and  I  was  once 
more  on  the  solid  ground  of  the  hillside. 

Now,  in  the  thick  weather  I  had  crossed  the 
glen  much  lower  down  than  in  the  morning,  and 
the  result  was  that  the  hill  on  which  I  stood  was 
one  of  the  giants  which,  with  the  Muneraw  for 
centre,  guard  the  watershed.  Had  I  taken  the 
proper  way,  the  Nick  o'  the  Threshes  would 
have  led  me  to  the  Caulds,  and  then  once  over 
the  bog  a  little  ridge  was  all  that  stood  between 
me  and  the  glen  of  Farawa.  But  instead  I  had 
come  a  wild  cross-country  road,  and  was  now,- 
though  I  did  not  know  it,  nearly  as  far  from  my 
destination  as  at  the  start. 

Well  for  me  that  I  did  not  know,  for  I  was 
wet  and  dispirited,  and  had  I  not  fancied  my- 
self all  but  home,  I  should  scarcely  have  had 
the  energy  to  make  this  last  ascent.  But  soon  I 
found  it  was  not  the  little  ridge  I  had  expected. 
I  looked  at  my  watch  and  saw  that  it  was  five 
o'clock.  When,  after  the  weariest  climb,  I  lay 
on  a  piece  of  level  ground  which  seemed  the  top, 
I  was  not  surprised  to  find  that  it  was  now 
seven.  The  darkening  must  be  at  hand,  and  sure 
enough  the  mist  seemed  to  be  deepening  into 
a  greyish  black.  I  began  to  grow  desperate. 
Here  was  I  on  the  summit  of  some  infernal 

41 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

mountain,  without  any  certainty  where  my  road 
lay.  I  was  lost  with  a  vengeance,  and  at  the 
thought  I  began  to  be  acutely  afraid. 

I  took  what  seemed  to  me  the  way  I  had  come, 
and  began  to  descend  steeply.  Then  something 
made  me  halt,  and  the  next  instant  I  was  lying 
on  my  face  trying  painfully  to  retrace  my  steps. 
For  I  had  found  myself  slipping,  and  before  I 
could  stop,  my  feet  were  dangling  over  a  pre- 
cipice with  Heaven  alone  knows  how  many 
yards  of  sheer  mist  between  me  and  the  bottom. 
Then  I  tried  keeping  the  ridge,  and  took  that  to 
the  right,  which  I  thought  would  bring  me 
nearer  home.  It  was  no  good  trying  to  think  out 
a  direction,  for  in  the  fog  my  brain  was  running 
round,  and  I  seemed  to  stand  on  a  pin-point  of 
space  where  the  laws  of  the  compass  had  ceased 
to  hold. 

It  was  the  roughest  sort  of  walking,  now  step- 
ping warily  over  acres  of  loose  stones,  now  crawl- 
ing down  the  face  of  some  battered  rock,  and 
now  wading  in  the  long  dripping  heather.  The 
soft  rain  had  begun  to  fall  again,  which  com- 
pleted my  discomfort.  I  was  now  seriously 
tired,  and,  like  all  men  who  in  their  day  have 
bent  too  much  over  books,  I  began  to  feel  it  in 
my  back.    My  spine  ached,  and  my  breath  came 

42     _ 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

in  short  broken  pants.  It  was  a  pitiable  state  of 
affairs  for  an  honest  man  who  had  never  en- 
countered much  grave  discomfort.  To  ease  my- 
self I  was  compelled  to  leave  my  basket  behind 
me,  trusting  to  return  and  find  it,  if  I  should 
ever  reach  safety  and  discover  on  what  pathless 
hill  I  had  been  strayed.  My  rod  I  used  as  a 
staff,  but  it  was  of  little  use,  for  my  fingers  were 
getting  too  numb  to  hold  it. 

Suddenly  from  the  blankness  I  heard  a  sound 
as  of  human  speech.  At  first  I  thought  it  mere 
craziness — the  cry  of  a  weasel  or  a  hill-bird  dis- 
torted by  my  ears.  But  again  it  came,  thick  and 
faint,  as  through  acres  of  mist,  and  yet  clearly 
the  sound  of  "articulate-speaking  men.''  In  a 
moment  I  lost  my  despair  and  cried  out  in  an- 
swer. This  was  some  forwandered  traveller  like 
myself,  and  between  us  we  could  surely  find 
some  road  to  safety.  So  I  yelled  back  at  the 
pitch  of  my  voice  and  waited  intently. 

But  the  sound  ceased,  and  there  was  utter 
silence  again.  Still  I  waited,  and  then  from 
some  place  much  nearer  came  the  same  soft 
mumbling  speech.  I  could  make  nothing  of  it. 
Heard  in  that  drear  place  it  made  the  nerves 
tense    and    the   heart   timorous.     It   was    the 

43 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 


1 


il 


Strangest  jumble  of  vowels   and  consonants   I 
had  ever  met. 

A  dozen  solutions  flashed  through  my  brain. 
It  was  some  maniac  talking  Jabberwock  to  him- 
self. It  was  some  belated  traveller  whose  wits 
had  given  out  in  fear.  Perhaps  it  was  only  some 
shepherd  who  was  amusing  himself  thus,  and 
whiling  the  way  with  nonsense.  Once  again  I 
cried  out  and  waited. 

Then  suddenly  in  the  hollow  trough  of  mist 
before  me,  where  things  could  still  be  half  dis-ill 
cerned,  there  appeared  a  figure.  It  was  little, 
and  squat  and  dark;  naked,  apparently,  but  so 
rough  with  hair  that  it  wore  the  appearance  of  a 
skin-covered  being.  It  crossed  my  line  of  vision, 
not  staying  for  a  moment,  but  in  its  face  and  eyes 
there  seemed  to  lurk  an  elder  world  of  mystery 
and  barbarism,  a  troll-like  life  which  was  too 
horrible  for  words. 

The  shepherd's  fear  came  back  on  me  like  a 
thunderclap.  For  one  awful  instant  my  legs 
failed  me,  and  I  had  almost  fallen.  The  next 
I  had  turned  and  ran  shrieking  up  the  hill. 

If  he  who  may  read  this  narrative  has  never 
felt  the  force  of  an  overmastering  terror,  then 
let  him  thank  his  Maker  and  pray  that  he  never 
may.    I  am  no  weak  child,  but  a  strong  grown 

44 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

man,  accredited  in  general  with  sound  sense  and 
little  suspected  of  hysterics.  And  yet  I  went  up 
that  brae-face  with  my  heart  fluttering  like  a 
bird  and  my  throat  aching  with  fear.  I 
screamed  in  short  dry  gasps;  involuntarily,  for 
my  mind  was  beyond  any  purpose.  I  felt  that 
beast-like  clutch  at  my  throat;  those  red  eyes 
seemed  to  be  staring  at  me  from  the  mist;  I 
heard  ever  behind  and  before  and  on  all  sides 
the  patter  of  those  inhuman  feet. 

Before  I  knew  I  was  down,  slipping  over  a 
rock  and  falling  some  dozen  feet  into  a  soft 
marshy  hollow.  I  was  conscious  of  lying  still 
for  a  second  and  whimpering  like  a  child.  But 
as  I  lay  there  I  awoke  to  the  silence  of  the  place. 
There  was  no  sound  of  pursuit;  perhaps  they 
had  lost  my  track  and  given  up.  My  courage 
began  to  return,  and  from  this  it  was  an  easy 
step  to  hope.  Perhaps  after  all  it  had  been 
merely  an  illusion,  for  folk  do  not  see  clearly  in 
the  mist,  and  I  was  already  done  with  weariness. 

But  even  as  I  lay  in  the  green  moss  and  began 
to  hope,  the  faces  of  my  pursuers  grew  up 
through  the  mist.  I  stumbled  madly  to  my  feet; 
but  I  was  hemmed  in,  the  rock  behind  and  my 
enemies  before.  With  a  cry  I  rushed  forward, 
and  struck  wildly  with  my  rod  at  the  first  dark 

45 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

body.  It  was  as  if  I  had  struck  an  animal,  and 
the  next  second  the  thing  was  wrenched  from 
my  grasp.  But  still  they  came  no  nearer.  I 
stood  trembling  there  in  the  centre  of  those 
malignant  devils,  my  brain  a  mere  weather- 
cock, and  my  heart  crushed  shapeless  with  hor- 
ror. At  last  the  end  came,  for  with  the  vigour 
of  madness  I  flung  myself  on  the  nearest,  and  we 
rolled  on  the  ground.  Then  the  monstrous 
things  seemed  to  close  over  me,  and  with  a 
choking  cry  I  passed  into  unconsciousness. 

IV.   THE  DARKNESS  THAT  IS  UNDER  THE  EARTH 

There  is  an  unconsciousness  that  is  not  wholly 
dead,  where  a  man  feels  numbly  and  the  body 
lives  without  the  brain.  I  was  beyond  speech 
or  thought,  and  yet  I  felt  the  upward  or  down- 
ward motion  as  the  way  lay  in  hill  or  glen,  and 
I  most  assuredly  knew  when  the  open  air  was 
changed  for  the  close  underground.  I  could  feel 
dimly  that  lights  were  flared  in  my  face,  and 
that  I  was  laid  in  some  bed  on  the  earth.  Then 
with  the  stopping  of  movement  the  real  sleep 
of  weakness  seized  me,  and  for  long  I  knew 
nothing  of  this  mad  world. 
•  •.*••• 

Morning  came  over  the  moors  with  birdsong 
46 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

and  the  glory  of  fine  weather.  The  streams  were 
still  rolling  in  spate,  but  the  hill-pastures  were 
alight  with  dawn,  and  the  little  seams  of  snow 
were  glistening  like  white  fire.  A  ray  from 
the  sunrise  cleft  its  path  somehow  into  the  abyss, 
and  danced  on  the  wall  above  my  couch.  It 
caught  my  eye  as  I  wakened,  and  for  long  I 
lay  crazily  wondering  what  it  meant.  My  head 
was  splitting  with  pain,  and  in  my  heart  was  the 
same  fluttering  nameless  fear.  I  did  not  wake 
to  full  consciousness ;  not  till  the  twinkle  of  sun 
from  the  clean  bright  out-of-doors  caught  my 
senses  did  I  realise  that  I  lay  in  a  great  dark 
place  with  a  glow  of  dull  firelight  in  the  middle. 
In  time  things  rose  and  moved  around  me,  a 
few  ragged  shapes  of  men,  without  clothing, 
shambling  with  their  huge  feet  and  looking  to- 
wards me  with  curved  beast-like  glances.  I 
tried  to  marshal  my  thoughts,  and  slowly,  bit  by 
bit,  I  built  up  the  present.  There  was  no  ques- 
tion to  my  mind  of  dreaming;  the  past  hours  had 
scored  reality  upon  my  brain.  Yet  I  cannot  say 
that  fear  was  my  chief  feeling.  The  first  crazy 
terror  had  subsided,  and  now  I  felt  mainly  a 
sickened  disgust  with  just  a  tinge  of  curiosity.  I 
found  that  my  knife,  watch,  flask,  and  money 
had  gone,  but  they  had  left  me  a  map  of  the 

47 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

countryside.  It  seemed  strange  to  look  at  the 
calico,  with  the  name  of  a  London  printer 
stamped  on  the  back,  and  lines  of  railway  and 
highroad  running  through  every  shire.  Decent 
and  comfortable  civilisation!  And  here  was  I 
a  prisoner  in  this  den  of  nameless  folk,  and  in 
the  midst  of  a  life  which  history  knew  not. 

Courage  is  a  virtue  which  grows  with  reflec- 
tion and  the  absence  of  the  immediate  peril.  I 
thought  myself  into  some  sort  of  resolution,  and 
lo!  when  the  Folk  approached  me  and  bound 
my  feet  I  was  back  at  once  in  the  most  miserable 
terror.  They  tied  me,  all  but  my  hands,  with 
some  strong  cord,  and  carried  me  to  the  centre, 
where  the  fire  was  glowing.  Their  soft  touch 
was  the  acutest  torture  to  my  nerves,  but  I 
stifled  my  cries  lest  some  one  should  lay  his  hand 
on  my  mouth.  Had  that  happened,  I  am  con- 
vinced my  reason  would  have  failed  me. 

So  there  I  lay  in  the  shine  of  the  fire,  with  the 
circle  of  unknown  things  around  me.  There 
seemed  but  three  or  four,  but  I  took  no  note  of 
number.  They  talked  huskily  among  them- 
selves in  a  tongue  which  sounded  all  gutturals. 
Slowly  my  fear  became  less  an  emotion  than  a 
habit,  and  I  nad  room  for  the  smallest  shade  of 
curiosity.     I  strained  my  ear  to  catch  a  word, 

48 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

but  it  was  a  mere  chaos  of  sound.  The  thing 
ran  and  thundered  in  my  brain  as  I  stared 
dumbly  into  the  vacant  air.  Then  I  thought 
that  unless  I  spoke  I  should  certainly  go  crazy, 
for  my  head  was  beginning  to  swim  at  the  strange 
cooing  noise. 

I  spoke  a  word  or  two  in  my  best  Gaelic,  and 
they  closed  round  me  inquiringly.  Then  I  was 
sorry  I  had  spoken,  for  my  words  had  brought 
them  nearer,  and  I  shrank  at  the  thought.  But 
as  the  faint  echoes  of  my  speech  hummed  in  the 
rock-chamber,  I  was  struck  by  a  curious  kinship 
of  sound.  Mine  was  sharper,  more  distinct,  and 
staccato;  theirs  was  blurred,  formless,  but  still 
with  a  certain  root-resemblance. 

Then  from  the  back  there  came  an  older  be- 
ing, who  seemed  to  have  heard  my  words.  He 
was  like  some  foul  grey  badger,  his  red  eyes 
sightless,  and  his  hands  trembling  on  a  stump  of 
bog-oak.  The  others  made  way  for  him  with 
such  deference  as  they  were  capable  of,  and  the 
thing  squatted  down  by  me  and  spoke. 

To  my  amazement  his  words  were  familiar. 
It  was  some  manner  of  speech  akin  to  the  Gaelic, 
but  broadened,  lengthened,  coarsened.  I  re- 
membered an  old  book-tongue,  commonly  sup- 
posed to  be  an  impure  dialect  once  used  in  Brit- 

49 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

tany,  which  I  had  met  in  the  course  of  my  re- 
searches. The  words  recalled  it,  and  as  far  as 
I  could  remember  the  thing,  I  asked  him  who 
he  was  and  where  the  place  might  be. 

He  answered  me  in  the  same  speech — still 
more  broadened,  lengthened,  coarsened.  I  lay 
back  with  sheer  amazement.  I  had  found  the 
key  to  this  unearthly  life. 

For  a  little  an  insatiable  curiosity,  the  ardour 
of  the  scholar^  prevailed.  I  forgot  the  horror 
of  the  place,  and  thought  only  of  the  fact  that 
here  before  me  was  the  greatest  find  that 
scholarship  had  ever  made.  I  was  precipitated 
into  the  heart  of  the  past.  Here  must  be  the 
fountainhead  of  all  legends,  the  chrysalis  of  all 
beliefs.  I  actually  grew  lighthearted.  This 
strange  folk  around  me  were  now  no  more  shape- 
less things  of  terror,  but  objects  of  research  and 
experiment.  I  almost  came  to  think  them  not 
unfriendly. 

For  an  hour  I  enjoyed  the  highest  of  earthly 
pleasures.  In  that  strange  conversation  I  heard 
' — in  fragments  and  suggestions — the  history  of 
the  craziest  survival  the  world  has  ever  seen.  I 
heard  of  the  struggles  with  invaders,  preserved 
as  it  were  in  a  sort  of  shapeless  poetry.  There 
were  bitter  words  against  the  Gaelic  oppressor, 

50 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

bitterer  words  against  the  Saxon  stranger,  and 
for  a  moment  ancient  hatreds  flared  into  life. 
Then  there  came  the  tale  of  the  hill-refuge,  the 
morbid  hideous  existence  preserved  for  centuries 
amid  a  changing  world.  I  heard  fragments  of 
old  religions,  primeval  names  of  god  and  god- 
dess, half-understood  by  the  Folk,  but  to  me  the 
key  to  a  hundred  puzzles.  Tales  which  sur- 
vive to  us  in  broken  disjointed  riddles  were  in- 
tact here  in  living  form.  I  lay  on  my  elbow  and 
questioned  feverishly.  At  any  moment  they 
might  become  morose  and  refuse  to  speak. 
Clearly  it  was  my  duty  to  make  the  most  of  a 
brief  good  fortune. 

And  then  the  tale  they  told  me  grew  more 
hideous.  I  heard  of  the  circumstances  of  the 
life  itself  and  their  daily  shifts  for  existence.  It 
was  a  murderous  chronicle — a  history  of  lust  and 
rapine  and  unmentionable  deeds  in  the  darkness. 
One  thing  they  had  early  recognised — that  the 
race  could  not  be  maintained  within  itself;  so 
that  ghoulish  carrying  away  of  little  girls  from 
the  lowlands  began,  which  I  had  heard  of  but 
never  credited.  Shut  up  in  those  dismal  holes, 
the  girls  soon  died,  and  when  the  new  race  had 
grown  up  the  plunder  had  been  repeated.  Then 
there  were  bestial  murders  in  lonely  cottages, 

51 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

done  for  God  knows  what  purpose.  Sometimes 
the  occupant  had  seen  more  than  was  safe,  some- 
times the  deed  was  the  mere  exuberance  of  a  lust 
of  slaying.  As  they  gabbled  their  tales  my 
heart's  blood  froze,  and  I  lay  back  in  the  agonies 
of  fear.  If  they  had  used  the  others  thus,  what 
way  of  escape  was  open  for  myself?  I  had  been 
brought  to. this  place,  and  not  murdered  on  the 
spot.  Clearly  there  was  torture  before  death  in 
store  for  me,  and  I  confess  I  quailed  at  the 
thought. 

But  none  molested  me.  The  elders  continued 
to  jabber  out  their  stories,  while  I  lay  tense  and 
deaf.  Then  to  my  amazement  food  was  brought 
and  placed  beside  me — almost  with  respect. 
Clearly  my  murder  was  not  a  thing  of  the  im- 
mediate future.  The  meal  was  some  form  of 
mutton — perhaps  the  shepherd's  lost  ewes — and 
a  little  smoking  was  all  the  cooking  it  had  got.  I 
strove  to  eat,  but  the  tasteless  morsels  choked 
me.  Then  they  set  drink  before  me  in  a  curious 
cup,  which  I  seized  on  eagerly,  for  my  mouth 
was  dry  with  thirst.  The  vessel  was  of  gold, 
rudely  formed,  but  of  the  pure  metal,  and  a 
coarse  design  in  circles  ran  round  the  middle. 
This  surprised  me  enough,  but  a  greater  wonder 
awaited  me.     The  liquor  was  not  water,  as  I 

52 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

has  guessed,  but  a  sort  of  sweet  ale,  a  miracle  of 
flavour.  The  taste  was  curious,  but  somehow 
familiar;  it  was  like  no  wine  I  had  ever  drunk, 
and  yet  I  had  known  that  flavour  all  my  life.  I 
sniffed  at  the  brim,  and  there  rose  a  faint  fra- 
grance of  thyme  and  heather  honey  and  the  sweet 
things  of  the  moorland.  I  almost  dropped  it  in 
my  surprise;  for  here  in  this  rude  place  I  had 
stumbled  upon  that  lost  delicacy  of  the  North, 
the  heather  ale. 

For  a  second  I  was  entranced  with  my  dis- 
covery, and  then  the  wonder  of  the  cup  claimed 
my  attention.  Was  it  a  mere  relic  of  pillage,  or 
had  this  folk  some  hidden  mine  of  the  precious 
metal?  Gold  had  once  been  common  in  these 
hills.  There  were  the  traces  of  mines  on  Cairns- 
more;  shepherds  had  found  it  in  the  gravel  of 
the  Gled  Water;  and  the  name  of  a  house  at  the 
head  of  the  Clachlands  meant  the  "Home  of 
Gold." 

Once  more  I  began  my  questions,  and  they  an- 
swered them  willingly.  There  and  then  I  heard 
that  secret  for  which  many  had  died  in  old  time, 
the  secret  of  the  heather  ale.  They  told  of  the 
gold  in  the  hills,  of  corries  where  the  sand 
gleamed  and  abysses  where  the  rocks  were 
veined.    All  this  they  told  me,  freely,  without 

53 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

a  scruple.  And  then,  like  a  clap,  came  the 
awful  thought  that  this,  too,  spelled  death. 
These  were  secrets  which  this  race  aforetime  had 
guarded  with  their  lives;  they  told  them  gen- 
erously to  me  because  there  was  no  fear  of  be- 
trayal. I  should  go  no  more  out  from  this  place. 
The  thought  put  me  into  a  new  sweat  of  ter- 
ror— not  at  death,  mind  you,  but  at  the  unknown 
horrors  which  might  precede  the  final  suffering. 
I  lay  silent,  and  after  binding  my  hands  they  be- 
gan to  leave  me  and  go  off  to  other  parts  of  the 
cave.  I  dozed  in  the  horrible  half-swoon  of 
fear,  conscious  only  of  my  shaking  limbs,  and 
the  great  dull  glow  of  the  fire  in  the  centre. 
Then  I  became  calmer.  After  all,  they  had 
treated  me  with  tolerable  kindness :  I  had  spoken 
their  language,  which  few  of  their  victims  could 
have  done  for  many  a  century;  it  might  be  that 
I  had  found  favour  in  their  eyes.  For  a  little 
I  comforted  myself  with  this  delusion,  till  I 
caught  sight  of  a  wooden  box  in  a  corner.  It 
was  of  modern  make,  one  such  as  grocers  use 
to  pack  provisions  in.  It  had  some  address 
nailed  on  it,  and  an  aimless  curiosity  compelled 
me  to  .creep  thither  and  read  it.  A  torn  and 
weather-stained  scrap  of  paper,  with  the  nails  at 
the  corner  rusty  with  age;  but  something  of  the 

54 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

address  might  still  be  made  out.     Amid  the 

stains  my  feverish  eyes  read,  "To  Mr  M , 

Carrickfey,  by  Allerfoot  Station." 

The  ruined  cottage  in  the  hollow  of  the  waste 
with  the  single  gnarled  apple-tree  was  before  me 
in  a  twinkling.  I  remembered  the  shepherd's 
shrinking  from  the  place  and  the  name,  and  his 
wild  eyes  when  he  told  me  of  the  thing  that  had 
happened  there.  I  seemed  to  see  the  old  man 
in  his  moorland  cottage,  thinking  no  evil;  the 
sudden  entry  of  the  nameless  things;  and  then 
the  eyes  glazed  in  unspeakable  terror.  I  felt 
my  lips  dry  and  burning.  Above  me  was  the 
vault  of  rock;  in  the  distance  I  saw  the  fire-glow 
and  the  shadows  of  shapes  moving  around  it. 
My  fright  was  too  great  for  inaction,  so  I  crept 
from  the  couch,  and  silently,  stealthily,  with  tot- 
tering steps  and  bursting  heart,  I  began  to  re- 
connoitre. 

But  I  was  still  bound,  my  arms  tightly,  my 
legs  more  loosely,  but  yet  firm  enough  to  hinder 
flight.  I  could  not  get  my  hands  at  my  leg-straps, 
still  less  could  I  undo  the  manacles.  I  rolled  on 
the  floor,  seeking  some  sharp  edge  of  rock,  but 
all  had  been  worn  smooth  by  the  use  of  cen- 
turies. Then  suddenly  an  idea  came  upon  me 
like  an  inspiration.    The  sounds  from  the  fire 

5S 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

seemed  to  have  ceased,  and  I  could  hear  them 
repeated  from  another  and  more  distant  part  of 
the  cave.  The  Folk  had  left  their  orgy  round 
the  blaze,  and  at  the  end  of  the  long  tunnel  I 
saw  its  glow  fall  unimpeded  upon  the  floor. 
Once  there,  I  might  burn  off  my  fetters  and  be 
free  to  turn  my  thoughts  to  escape. 

I  crawled  a  little  way  with  much  labour. 
Then  suddenly  I  came  abreast  an  opening  in  the 
wall,  through  which  a  path  went.  It  was  a 
long  straight  rock-cutting,  and  at  the  end  I  saw 
a  gleam  of  pale  light.  It  must  be  the  open  air; 
the  v^y  of  escape  was  prepared  for  me;  and 
with  a  prayer  I  made  what  speed  I  could 
towards  the  fire. 

I  rolled  on  the  verge,  but  the  fuel  was  peat, 
and  the  warm  ashes  would  not  burn  the  cords. 
In  desperation  I  went  farther,  and  my  clothes 
began  to  singe,  while  my  face  ached  beyond  en- 
durance. But  yet  I  got  no  nearer  my  object. 
The  strips  of  hide  warped  and  cracked,  but 
did  not  burn.  Then  in  a  last  effort  I  thrust  my 
wrists  bodily  into  the  glow  and  held  them  there. 
In  an  instant  I  drew  them  out  with  a  groan  of 
pain,  scarred  and  sore,  but  to  my  joy  with  the 
band  snapped  in  one  place.  Weak  as  I  was,  it 
was  now  easy  to  free  myself,  and  then  came  the 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

untying  of  my  legs.  My  hands  trembled,  my 
eyes  were  dazed  with  hurry,  and  I  was  longer 
over  the  job  than  need  have  been.  But  at  length 
I  had  loosed  my  cramped  knees  and  stood  on  my 
feet,  a  free  man  once  more. 

I  kicked  off  my  boots,  and  fled  noiselessly 
down  the  passage  to  the  tunnel  mouth.  Ap- 
parently it  was  close  on  evening,  for  the  white 
light  had  faded  to  a  pale  yellow.  But  it  was 
daylight,  and  that  was  all  I  sought,  and  I  ran 
for  it  as  eagerly  as  ever  runner  ran  to  a  goal.  I 
came  out  on  a  rock-shelf,  beneath  which  a 
moraine  of  boulders  fell  away  in  a  chasm  to  a 
dark  loch.  It  was  all  but  night,  but  I  could  see 
the  gnarled  and  fortressed  rocks  rise  in  ram- 
parts above,  and  below  the  unknown  screes  and 
cliffs  which  make  the  side  of  the  Muneraw  a 
place  only  for  foxes  and  the  fowls  of  the  air. 

The  first  taste  of  liberty  is  an  intoxication,  and 
assuredly  I  was  mad  when  I  leaped  down  among 
the  boulders.  Happily  at  the  top  of  the  gully 
the  stones  were  large  and  stable,  else  the  noise 
would  certainly  have  discovered  me.  Down  I 
went,  slipping,  praying,  my  charred  wrists  ach- 
ing, and  my  stockinged  feet  wet  with  blood. 
Soon  I  was  in  the  jaws  of  the  cleft,  and  a  pale 
star  rose  before  me.     I  have  always  been  timid 

^1 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

in  the  face  of  great  rocks,  and  now,  had  not  an 
awful  terror  been  dogging  my  footsteps,  no 
power  on  earth  could  have  driven  me  to  that 
descent.  Soon  I  left  the  boulders  behind,  and 
came  to  long  spouts  of  little  stones,  which  moved 
with  me  till  the  hillside  seemed  sinking  under 
my  feet.  Sometimes  I  was  face  downwards,  once 
and  again  I  must  have  fallen  for  yards.  Had 
there  been  a  cliff  at  the  foot,  I  should  have  gone 
over  it  without  resistance ;  but  by  the  providence 
of  God  the  spout  ended  in  a  long  curve  into  the 
heather  of  the  bog. 

When  I  found  my  feet  once  more  on  soft 
boggy  earth,  my  strength  was  renewed  within 
me.  A  great  hope  of  escape  sprang  up  in  my 
heart.  For  a  second  I  looked  back.  There  was 
a  great  line  of  shingle  with  the  cliffs  beyond, 
and  above  all  the  unknown  blackness  of  the  cleft. 
There  lay  my  terror,  and  I  set  off  running  across 
the  bog  for  dear  life.  My  mind  was  clear 
enough  to  know  my  road.  If  I  held  round  the 
loch  in  front  I  should  come  to  a  burn  which  fed 
the  Farawa  stream,  on  whose  banks  stood  the 
shepherd's  cottage.  The  loch  could  not  be  far; 
once  at  the  Farawa  I  would  have  the  light  of 
the  shieling  clear  before  me. 

Suddenly  I  heard  behind  me,  as  if  coming 
58 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

from  the  hillside,  the  patter  of  feet.  It  was  the 
sound  which  white  hares  make  in  the  winter- 
time on  a  noiseless  frosty  day  as  they  patter 
over  the  snow.  I  have  heard  the  same  soft  noise 
from  a  herd  of  deer  when  they  changed  their 
pastures.  Strange  that  so  kindly  a  sound  should 
put  the  very  fear  of  death  in  my  heart.  I  ran 
madly,  blindly,  yet  thinking  shrewdly.  The 
loch  was  before  me.  Somewhere  I  had  read  or 
heard,  I  do  not  know  where,  that  the  brutish 
aboriginal  races  of  the  North  could  not  swim. 
I  myself  swam  powerfully;  could  I  but  cross  the 
loch  I  should  save  two  miles  of  a  desperate 
country. 

There  was  no  time  to  lose,  for  the  patter  was 
coming  nearer,  and  I  was  almost  at  the  loch's 
edge.  I  tore  off  my  coat  and  rushed  in.  The 
bottom  was  mossy,  and  I  had  to  struggle  far  be- 
fore I  found  any  depth.  Something  plashed  in 
the  water  before  me,  and  then  something  else  a 
little  behind.  The  thought  that  I  was  a  mark 
for  unknown  missiles  made  me  crazy  with 
fright,  and  I  struck  fiercely  out  for  the  other 
shore.  A  gleam  of  moonlight  was  on  the  water 
at  the  burn's  exit,  and  thither  I  guided  myself. 
I  found  the  thing  difficult  enough  in  itself,  for 
my  hands  ached,  and  I  was  numb  from  my 

59 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 


1 


bonds.  But  my  fancy  raised  a  thousand  phan- 
toms to  vex  me.  Swimming  in  that  black  bog 
water,  pursued  by  those  nameless  things,  I 
seemed  to  be  in  a  world  of  horror  far  removed 
from  the  kindly  world  of  men.  My  strength 
seemed  inexhaustible  from  my  terror.  Monsters 
at  the  bottom  of  the  water  seemed  to  bite  at  my 
feet,  and  the  pain  of  my  wrists  made  me  believe 
that  the  loch  was  boiling  hot,  and  that  I  was 
in  some  hellish  place  of  torment. 

I  came  out  on  a  spit  of  gravel  above  the  burn 
mouth,  and  set  off  down  the  ravine  of  the  burn. 
It  was  a  strait  place,  strewn  with  rocks;  but 
now  and  then  the  hill  turf  came  in  stretches,  and 
eased  my  wounded  feet.  Soon  the  fall  became 
more  abrupt,  and  I  was  slipping  down  a  hill- 
side, with  the  water  on  my  left  making  great 
cascades  in  the  granite.  And  then  I  was  out  in 
the  wider  vale  where  the  Farawa  water  flowed 
among  links  of  moss. 

Far  in  front,  a  speck  in  the  blue  darkness, 
shone  the  light  of  the  cottage.  I  panted  for- 
ward, my  breath  coming  in  gasps  and  my  back 
shot  with  fiery  pains.  Happily  the  land  was 
easier  for  the  feet  as  long  as  I  kept  on  the  skirts 
of  the  bog.  My  ears  were  sharp  as  a  wild 
beast's  with  fear,  as  I  listened  for  the  noise  of 

60 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

pursuit.  Nothing  came  but  the  rustle  of  the 
gentlest  hill-wind  and  the  chatter  of  the  fall- 
ing streams. 

Then  suddenly  the  light  began  to  waver  and 
move  athwart  the  window.  I  knew  what  it 
meant.  In  a  minute  or  two  the  household  at  the 
cottage  would  retire  to  rest,  and  the  lamp 
would  be  put  out.  True,  I  might  find  the  place 
in  the  dark,  for  there  was  a  moon  of  sorts  and 
the  road  was  not  desperate.  But  somehow  in 
that  hour  the  lamplight  gave  a  promise  of 
safety  which  I  clung  to  despairingly. 

And  then  the  last  straw  was  added  to  my 
misery.  Behind  me  came  the  pad  of  feet,  the 
pat-patter,  soft,  eerie,  incredibly  swift.  I 
choked  with  fear,  and  flung  myself  forward  in 
a  last  effort.  I  give  my  word  it  was  sheer  me- 
chanical shrinking  that  drove  me  on.  God 
knows  I  would  have  lain  down  to  die  in  the 
heather,  had  the  things  behind  me  been  a  com- 
mon terror  of  life. 

I  ran  as  man  never  ran  before,  leaping  hags, 
scrambling  through  green  well-heads,  straining 
towards  the  fast-dying  light.  A  quarter  of  a 
mile  and  the  patter  sounded  nearer.  Soon  I  was 
not  two  hundred  yards  off,  and  the  noise  seemed 
almost  at  my  elbow.    The  light  went  out,  and 

6i 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

the  black  mass  of  the  cottage  loomed  in  the  dark. 
Then,  before  I  knew,  I  was  at  the  door,  bat- 
tering it  wearily  and  yelling  for  help.  I  heard 
steps  within  and  a  hand  on  the  bolt.  Then 
something  shot  past  me  with  lightning  force 
and  buried  itself  in  the  wood.  The  dreadful 
hands  were  almost  at  my  throat,  when  the  door 
was  opened  and  I  stumbled  in,  hearing  with  a 
gulp  of  joy  the  key  turn  and  the  bar  fall  be- 
hind me. 

V:   THE  TROUBLES  OF  A  CONSCIENCE 

My  body  and  senses  slept,  for  I  was  utterly 
tired,  but  my  brain  all  the  night  was  on  fire 
with  horrid  fancies.  Again  I  was  in  that  ac- 
cursed cave;  I  was  torturing  my  hands  in  the 
fire;  I  was  slipping  barefoot  among  jagged 
boulders;  and  then  with  bursting  heart  I  was 
toiling  the  last  mile  with  the  cottage  light — now 
grown  to  a  great  fire  in  the  heavens — blazing 
before  me. 

It  was  broad  daylight  when  I  awoke,  and  I 
thanked  God  for  the  comfortable  rays  of  the 
sun.  I  had  been  laid  in  a  box-bed  off  the  in- 
ner room,  and  my  first  sight  was  the  shepherd 
sitting  with  folded  arms  in  a  chair  regarding 
me  solemnly.     I  rose  and  began  to  dress,  feel- 

62 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

ing  my  legs  and  arms  still  tremble  with  weari- 
ness. The  shepherd's  sister  bound  up  my 
scarred  wrists  and  put  an  ointment  on  my  burns; 
and,  limping  like  an  old  man,  I  went  into  the 
kitchen. 

I  could  eat  little  breakfast,  for  my  throat 
seemed  dry  and  narrow;  but  they  gave  me  some 
brandy-and-milk,  which  put  strength  into  my 
body.  All  the  time  the  brother  and  sister  sat 
in  silence,  regarding  me  with  covert  glances. 

''Ye  have  been  delivered  from  the  jaws  o' 
the  Pit,"  said  the  man  at  length.  "See  that," 
and  he  held  out  to  me  a  thin  shaft  of  flint.  "I 
fand  that  in  the  door  this  morning." 

I  took  it,  let  it  drop,  and  stared  vacantly  at 
the  window.  My  nerves  had  been  too  much 
tried  to  be  roused  by  any  new  terror.  Out  of 
doors  it  was  fair  weather,  flying  gleams  of  April 
sunlight  and  the  soft  colours  of  spring.  I  felt 
dazed,  isolated,  cut  off  from  my  easy  past  and 
pleasing  future,  a  companion  of  horrors  and  the 
sport  of  nameless  things.  Then  suddenly  my 
eye  fell  on  my  books  heaped  on  a  table,  and  the 
old  distant  civilisation  seemed  for  the  moment 
inexpressibly  dear. 

^'I  must  go— at  once.  And  you  must  come  too. 
You  cannot  stay  here.    I  tell  you  it  is  death.    If 

63 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

you  knew  what  I  know  you  would  be  crying  out 
with  fear.  How  far  is  it  to  Allermuir?  Eight, 
fifteen  milesj  and  then  tea  down  Glen  AUer  to 
Allerfoot,  and  then  the  railway.  We  must  go 
together  while  it  is  daylight,  and  perhaps  we 
may  be  untouched.  But  quick,  there  is  not  a 
moment  to  lose."  And  I  was  on  my  shaky  feet, 
and  bustling  among  my  possessions. 

"ril  gang  wi'  ye  to  the  station,"  said  the  shep- 
herd, "for  ye're  clearly  no  fit  to  look  after  your- 
self. My  sister  will  bide  and  keep  the  house. 
If  naething  has  touched  us  this  ten  year,  naeth- 
ing  will  touch  us  the  day." 

"But  you  cannot  stay.  You  are  mad,"  I  be- 
gan; but  he  cut  me  short  with  the  words,  "1 
trust  in  God." 

"In  any  case  let  your  sister  come  with  us.  I 
dare  not  think  of  a  woman  alone  in  this  place.'* 

"I'll  bide,"  said  she.  "I'm  no  feared  as  lang 
as  I'm  indoors  and  there's  steeks  on  the  windies." 

So  I  packed  my  few  belongings  as  best  I 
could,  tumbled  my  books  into  a  haversack,  and, 
gripping  the  shepherd's  arm  nervously,  crossed 
the  threshold.  The  glen  was  full  of  sunlight. 
There  lay  the  long  shining  links  of  the  Farawa 
burn,  the  rough  hills  tumbled  beyond,  and  far 
over  all  the  scarred  and  distant  forehead  of  the 

64 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

Muneraw.  I  had  always  looked  on  moorland 
country  as  the  freshest  on  earth — clean,  whole- 
some, and  homely.  But  now  the  fresh  uplands 
seemed  like  a  horrible  pit.  When  I  looked  to 
the  hills  my  breath  choked  in  my  throat,  and  the 
feel  of  soft  heather  below  my  feet  set  my  heart 
trembling. 

It  was  a  slow  journey  to  the  inn  at  Allermuir. 
For  one  thing,  no  power  on  earth  would  draw 
me  within  sight  of  the  shieling  of  Carrickfey, 
so  we  had  to  cross  a  shoulder  of  hill  and  make 
our  way  down  a  difficult  glen,  and  then  over  a 
treacherous  moss.  The  lochs  were  now  gleam- 
ing like  fretted  silver;  but  to  me,  in  my  dread- 
ful knowledge,  they  seemed  more  eerie  than  on 
that  grey  day  when  I  came.  At  last  my  eyes 
were  cheered  by  the  sight  of  a  meadow  and  a 
fence;  then  we  were  on  a  little  byroad;  and  soon 
the  fir-woods  and  corn-lands  of  Allercleuch 
were  plain  before  us. 

The  shepherd  came  no  farther,  but  with  brief 
good-bye  turned  his  solemn  face  hillwards.  I 
hired  a  trap  and  a  man  to  drive,  and  down  the 
ten  miles  of  Glen  Aller  I  struggled  to  keep  my 
thoughts  from  the  past.  I  thought  of  the  kindly 
South  Country,  of  Oxford,  of  anything  com- 
fortable and  civilised.     My  driver  pointed  out 

6S 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

the  objects  of  interest  as  in  duty  bound,  but  his 
words  fell  on  unheeding  ears.  At  last  he  said 
something  which  roused  me  indeed  to  interest 
— the  interest  of  the  man  who  hears  the  word  he 
fears  most  in  the  world.  On  the  left  side  of  the 
river  there  suddenly  sprang  into  view  a  long 
gloomy  cleft  in  the  hills,  with  a  vista  of  dark 
mountains  behind,  down  which  a  stream  of  con- 
siderable size  poured  its  waters. 

^^That  is  the  Water  o'  Dule,"  said  the  man  in 
a  reverent  voice.  "A  graund  water  to  fish,  but 
dangerous  to  life,  for  it's  a'  linns.  Awa'  at  the 
heid  they  say  there's  a  terrible  wild  place  called 
the  Scarts  o'  Muneraw, — that's  a  shouther  o' 
the  muckle  hill  itsel'  that  ye  see, — but  I've  never 
been  there,  and  I  never  kent  ony  man  that  had 
either." 

At  the  station,  which  is  a  mile  from  the  vil- 
lage of  AUerfoot,  I  found  I  had  some  hours  to 
wait' on  my  train  for  the  south.  I  dared  not  trust 
myself  for  one  moment  alone,  so  I  hung  about 
the  goods-shed,  talked  vacantly  to  the  porters, 
and  when  one  went  to  the  village  for  tea  I  ac- 
companied him,  and  to  his  wonder  entertained 
him  at  the  inn.  When  I  returned  I  found  on 
the  platform  a  stray  bagman  who  was  that 
evening  going  to  London.    If  there  is  one  class 

66 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

of  men  in  the  world  which  I  heartily  detest  it  is 
this;  but  such  was  my  state  that  I  hailed  him  as 
a  brother,  and  besought  his  company.  I  paid 
the  difference  for  a  first-class  fare,  and  had  him 
in  the  carriage  with  me.  He  must  have  thought 
me  an  amiable  maniac,  for  I  talked  in  fits  and 
starts,  and  when  he  fell  asleep  I  would  wake  him 
up  and  beseech  him  to  speak  to  me.  At  way- 
side stations  I  would  pull  down  the  blinds  in 
case  of  recognition,  for  to  my  unquiet  mind  the 
world  seemed  full  of  spies  sent  by  that  terrible 
Folk  of  the  Hills.  When  the  train  crossed  a 
stretch  of  moor  I  would  lie  down  on  the  seat  in 
case  of  shafts  fired  from  the  heather.  And  then 
at  last  with  utter  weariness  I  fell  asleep,  and 
woke  screaming  about  midnight  to  find  myself 
well  down  in  the  cheerful  English  midlands,  and 
red  blast-furnaces  blinking  by  the  railwayside. 
In  the  morning  I  breakfasted  in  my  rooms  at 
St  Chad's  with  a  dawning  sense  of  safety.  I  was 
in  a  different  and  calmer  world.  The  lawn-like 
quadrangles,  the  great  trees,  the  cawing  of  rooks, 
and  the  homely  twitter  of  sparrows — all  seemed 
decent  and  settled  and  pleasing.  Indoors  the 
oak-panelled  walls,  the  shelves  of  books,  the 
pictures,  the  faint  fragrance  of  tobacco,  were 
very  different  from  the  gimcrack  adornments 

67 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

and  the  accursed  smell  of  peat  and  heather  in 
that  deplorable  cottage.  It  was  still  vacation- 
time,  so  most  of  my  friends  were  down;  but  I 
spent  the  day  hunting  out  the  few  cheerful 
pedants  to  whom  term  and  vacation  were  the 
same.  It  delighted  me  to  hear  again  their  pre- 
cise talk,  to  hear  them  make  a  boast  of  their 
work,  and  narrate  the  childish  little  accidents 
of  their  life.  I  yearned  for  the  childish  once 
more;  I  craved  for  women's  drawing-rooms, 
and  women's  chatter,  and  everything  which 
makes  life  an  elegant  game.  God  knows  I  had 
had  enough  of  the  other  thing  for  a  lifetime! 

That  night  I  shut  myself  in  my  rooms,  barred 
my  windows,  drew  my  curtains,  and  made  a 
great  destruction.  All  books  or  pictures  which 
recalled  to  me  the  moorlands  were  ruthlessly 
doomed.  Novels,  poems,  treatises  I  flung  into 
an  old  box,  for  sale  to  the  second-hand  book- 
seller. Some  prints  and  water-colour  sketches 
I  tore  to  pieces  with  my  own  hands.  I  ran- 
sacked my  fishing-book,  and  condemned  all 
tackle  for  moorland  waters  to  the  flames.  I 
wrote  a  letter  to  my  solicitors,  bidding  them  go 
no  further  in  the  purchase  of  a  place  in  Lorn  I 
had  long  been  thinking  of.  Then,  and  not  till 
then,  did  I  feel  the  bondage  of  the  past  a  little 

68 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

loosed  from  my  shoulders.  I  made  myself  a 
night-cap  of  rum-punch  instead  of  my  usual 
whisky-toddy,  that  all  associations  with  that 
dismal  land  might  be  forgotten,  and  to  complete 
the  renunciation  I  returned  to  cigars  and  flung 
my  pipe  into  a  drawer. 

But  when  I  woke  in  the  morning  I  found  that 
it  is  hard  to  get  rid  of  memories.  My  feet  were 
still  sore  and  wounded,  and  when  I  felt  my  arms 
cramped  and  reflected  on  the  causes,  there  was 
that  black  memory  always  near  to  vex  me. 

In  a  little  term  began,  and  my  duties — as  dep- 
uty-professor of  Northern  Antiquities — were 
once  more  clamorous.  I  can  well  believe  that 
my  hearers  found  my  lectures  strange,  for  in- 
stead of  dealing  with  my  favourite  subjects  and 
matters,  which  I  might  modestly  say  I  had  made 
my  own,  I  confined  myself  to  recondite  and  dis- 
tant themes,  treating  even  these  cursorily  and 
dully.  For  the  truth  is,  my  heart  was  no  more 
in  my  subject.  I  hated — or  I  thought  that  I 
hated — all  things  Northern  with  the  virulence 
of  utter  fear.  My  reading  was  confined  to 
science  of  the  most  recent  kind,  to  abstruse  phi- 
losophy, and  to  foreign  classics.  Anything 
which  savoured  of  romance  or  mystery  was  ab- 

69 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

horrent;   I   pined   for  sharp   outlines   and   the 
tangibility  of  a  high  civilisation. 

All  the  term  I  threw  myself  into  the  most 
frivolous  life  of  the  place.  My  Harrow  school- 
days seemed  to  have  come  back  to  me.  I  had 
once  been  a  fair  cricketer,  so  I  played  again  for 
my  college,  and  made  decent  scores.  I  coached 
an  indifferent  crew  on  the  river.  I  fell  into  the 
slang  of  the  place,  which  I  had  hitherto  de- 
tested. My  former  friends  looked  on  me 
askance,  as  if  some  freakish  changeling  had 
possessed  me.  Formerly  I  had  been  ready  for 
pedantic  discussion,  I  had  been  absorbed  in  my 
work,  men  had  spoken  of  me  as  a  rising  scholar. 
Now  I  fled  the  very  mention  of  things  I  had 
once  delighted  in.  The  Professor  of  Northern 
Antiquities,  a  scholar  of  European  reputation, 
meeting  me  once  in  the  Parks,  embarked  on  an 
account  of  certain  novel  rings  recently  found  in 
Scotland,  and  to  his  horror  found  that,  when  he 
had  got  well  under  weigh,  I  had  slipped  off  un- 
noticed. I  heard  afterwards  that  the  good  old 
man  was  found  by  a  friend  walking  disconso- 
lately with  bowed  head  in  the  middle  of  the 
High  Street.  Being  rescued  from  among  the 
horses'  feet,  he  could  only  murmur,  "I  am  think- 

70 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

ing  of  Graves,  poor  man!    And  a  year  ago  he 
was  as  sane  as  I  am!" 

But  a  man  may  not  long  deceive  himself.  I 
kept  up  the  illusion  valiantly  for  the  term ;  but 
I  felt  instinctively  that  the  fresh  schoolboy  life^ 
which  seemed  to  me  the  extreme  opposite  to  the 
ghoulish  North,  and  as  such  the  most  desirable 
of  things,  was  eternally  cut  off  from  me.  No 
cunning  affectation  could  ever  dispel  my  real 
nature  or  efface  the  memory  of  a  week.  I  real- 
ised miserably  that  sooner  or  latter  I  must  fight 
it  out  with  my  conscience.  I  began  to  call  my- 
self a  coward.  The  chief  thoughts  of  my  mind 
began  to  centre  themselves  more  and  more  round 
that  unknown  life  waiting  to  be  explored  among 
the  wilds. 

One  day  I  met  a  friend — an  official  in  the 
British  Museum— who  was  full  of  some  new 
theory  about  primitive  habitations.  To  me  it 
seemed  inconceivably  absurd;  but  he  was  strong 
in  his  confidence,  and  without  flaw  in  his  evi- 
dence. The  man  irritated  me,  and  I  burned  to 
prove  him  wrong,  but  I  could  think  of  no  argu- 
ment which  was  final  against  his.  Then  it  flashed 
upon  me  that  my  own  experience  held  the  dis- 
proof ;  and  without  more  words  I  left  him,  hot, 

71 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 


I 


angry  with  myself,  and  tantalised  by  the  unat- 
tainable. 

I  might  relate  my  bona-fide  experience,  but 
would  men  believe  me?  I  must  bring  proofs,  I 
must  complete  my  researches,  so  as  to  make  them 
incapable  of  disbelief.  And  there  in  those  des- 
erts was  waiting  the  key.  There  lay  the  greatest 
discovery  of  the  century — nay,  of  the  millen- 
nium. There,  too,  lay  the  road  to  wealth  such 
as  I  had  never  dreamed  of.  Could  I  succeed,  I 
should  be  famous  for  ever.  I  would  revolution- 
ise history  and  anthropology;  I  would  systema- 
tise folk-lore;  I  would  show  the  world  of  men 
the  pit  whence  they  were  digged  and  the  rock 
whence  they  were  hewn. 

And  then  began  a  game  of  battledore  between 
myself  and  my  conscience. 

"You  are  a  coward,"  said  my  conscience. 

"I  am  sufficiently  brave,"  I  would  answer.  "I 
have  seen  things  and  yet  lived.  The  terror  is 
more  than  mortal,  and  I  cannot  face  it." 

"You  are  a  coward,"  said  my  conscience. 

"I  am  not  bound  to  go  there  again.  It  would 
be  purely  for  my  own  aggrandisement  if  I  went, 
and  not  for  any  matter  of  duty." 

"Nevertheless  you  are  a  coward,"  said  my 
conscience. 

72 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

"In  any  case  the  matter  can  wait.'' 

"You  are  a  coward.'' 
•  •••••• 

Then  came  one  awful  midsummer  night,  when 
I  lay  sleepless  and  fought  the  thing  out  with  my- 
self. I  knew  that  the  strife  was  hopeless,  that 
I  should  have  no  peace  in  this  world  again  un- 
less I  made  the  attempt.  The  dawn  was  break- 
ing when  I  came  to  the  final  resolution;  and 
when  I  rose  and  looked  at  my  face  in  a  mirror, 
lo !  it  was  white  and  lined  and  drawn  like  a  man 
of  sixty. 

VI :    SUMMER  ON  THE  MOORS 

The  next  morning  I  packed  a  bag  with  some 
changes  of  clothing  and  a  collection  of  note- 
books, and  went  up  to  town.  The  first  thing 
I  did  was  to  pay  a  visit  to  my  solicitors.  "I  am 
about  to  travel,"  said  I,  "and  I  wish  to  have  all 
things  settled  in  case  any  accident  should  hap- 
pen to  me."  So  I  arranged  for  the  disposal  of 
my  property  in  case  of  death,  and  added  a  codi- 
cil which  puzzled  the  lawyers.  If  I  did  not  re- 
turn within  six  months,  communications  were 
to  be  entered  into  with  the  shepherd  at  the 
shieling  of  Farawa — post-town  AUerfoot.  If 
he  could  produce  any  papers,  they  were  to  be  put 

73 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

into  the  hands  of  certain  friends,  published,  and 
the  cost  charged  to  my  estate.  From  my  solici- 
tors I  went  to  a  gunmaker's  in  Regent  Street  and 
bought  an  ordinary  six-chambered  revolver, 
feeling  much  as  a  man  must  feel  who  proposed 
to  cross  the  Atlantic  in  a  skifif  and  purchased  a 
small  life-belt  as  a  precaution. 

I  took  the  night  express  to  the  North,  and, 
for  a  marvel,  I  slept.  When  I  awoke  about  four 
we  were  on  the  verge  of  Westmoreland,  and 
stony  hills  blocked  the  horizon.  At  first  I  hailed 
the  mountainrland  gladly;  sleep  for  the  moment 
had  caused  forgetfulness  of  my  terrors.  But 
soon  a  turn  of  the  line  brought  me  in  full  view 
of  a  heathery  moor,  running  far  to  a  confusion  of 
distant  peaks.  I  remembered  my  mission  and 
my  fate,  and  if  ever  condemned  criminal  felt  a 
more  bitter  regret  I  pity  his  case.  Why  should  I 
alone  among  the  millions  of  this  happy  isle  be 
singled  out  as  the  repository  of  a  ghastly  secret, 
and  be  cursed  by  a  conscience  which  would  not 
let  it  rest? 

I  came  to  Allerfoot  early  in  the  forenoon,  and 
got  a  trap  to  drive  me  up  the  valley.  It  was  a 
lowering  grey  day,  hot  and  yet  sunless.  A  sort 
of  heat-haze  cloaked  the  hills,  and  every  now 
and  then  a  smurr  of  rain  would  meet  us  on  the 

74 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

road,  and  in  a  minute  be  over.  I  felt  wretchedly 
dispirited;  and  when  at  last  the  white-washed 
kirk  of  Allermuir  came  into  sight  and  the 
broken-backed  bridge  of  Aller,  man's  eyes 
seemed  to  have  looked  on  no  drearier  scene  since 
time  began. 

I  ate  what  meal  I  could  get,  for,  fears  or  no, 
I  was  voraciously  hungry.  Then  I  asked  the 
landlord  to  find  me  some  man  who  would  show 
me  the  road  to  Farawa.  I  demanded  company, 
not  for  protection — for  what  could  two  men  do 
a^^ainst  such  brutish  strength? — but  to  keep  my 
mind  from  its  own  thoughts. 

The  man  looked  at  me  anxiously. 

"Are  ye  acquaint  wi'  the  folks,  then?"  he 
asked. 

I  said  I  was,  that  I  had  often  stayed  in  the 
cottage. 

"Ye  ken  that  they've  a  name  for  being  queer. 
The  man  never  comes  here  forbye  once  or  twice 
a-year,  and  he  has  few  dealings  wi'  other  herds. 
He's  got  an  ill  name,  too,  for  losing  sheep.  I 
dinna  like  the  country  ava.  Up  by  yon  Mune- 
raw — no  that  I've  ever  been  there,  but  I've  seen 
it  afar  off — is  enough  to  put  a  man  daft  for  the 
rest  o'  his  days.  What's  taking  ye  thereaways? 
It  s  no  the  time  for  the  fishing?" 

75 


1 

THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

I  told  him  that  I  was  a  botanist  going  to  ex- 
plore certain  hill-crevices  for  rare  ferns.  He 
shook  his  head,  and  then  after  some  delay  found 
me  an  ostler  who  would  accompany  me  to  the 
cottage. 

The  man  was  a  shock-headed,  long-limbed 
fellow,  with  fierce  red  hair  and  a  humorous  eye. 
He  talked  sociably  about  his  life,  answered  my 
hasty  questions  with  deftness,  and  beguiled  me 
for  the  moment  out  of  myself.  I  passed  the  mel- 
ancholy lochs,  and  came  in  sight  of  the  great 
stony  hills  without  the  trepidation  I  had  expect- 
ed. Here  at  my  side  was  one  who  found  some 
humour  even  in  those  uplands.  But  one  thing  I 
noted  which  brought  back  the  old  uneasiness. 
He  took  the  road  which  led  us  farthest  from 
Carrickfey,  and  when  to  try  him  I  proposed  the 
other,  he  vetoed  it  with  emphasis. 

After  this  his  good  spirit  departed,  and  he 
grew  distrustful. 

^What  mak's  ye  a  freend  o'  the  herd  at  Tar- 
awa ?"  he  demanded  a  dozen  times. 

Finally,  I  asked  him  if  he  knew  the  man,  and 
had  seen  him  lately. 

^^I  dinna  ken  him,  and  I  hadna  seen  him  for 
years  till  a  fortnicht  syne,  when  a'  Allermuir  saw 
him.    He  cam  doun  one  afternoon  to  the  public- 

76 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

hoose,  and  begood  to  drink.  He  had  aye  been 
kenned  for  a  terrible  godly  kind  o'  a  man,  so  ye 
may  believe  folk  wondered  at  this.  But  when 
he  had  stuck  to  the  drink  for  twae  days,  and  filled 
himseP  blind-fou  half-a-dozen  o'  times,  he  took 
a  fit  o'  repentance,  and  raved  and  blethered  about 
siccan  a  life  as  he  led  in  the  muirs.  There  was 
some  said  he  was  speakin'  serious,  but  maist 
thocht  it  was  juist  daftness." 

*^And  what  did  he  speak  about?"  I  asked 
sharply. 

"I  canna  verra  weel  tell  ye.  It  was  about 
some  kind  o'  bogle  that  lived  in  the  Muneraw 
— that's  the  shouthers  o't  ye  see  yonder — and  it 
seems  that  the  bogle  killed  his  sheep  and  f  richted 
himser.  He  was  aye  bletherin',  too,  about  some- 
thing or  somebody  ca'd  Grave;  but  oh!  the  man 
wasna  wise."  And  my  companion  shook  a  con- 
temptuous head. 

And  then  below  us  in  the  valley  we  saw  the 
shieling,  with  a  thin  shaft  of  smoke  rising  into 
the  rainy  grey  weather.  The  man  left  me,  sturd- 
ily refusing  any  fee.  "I  wantit  my  legs  stretched 
as  weel  as  you.  A  walk  in  the  hills  is  neither 
here  nor  there  to  a  stoot  man.  When  will  ye  be 
back,  sir?" 

The  question  was  well-timed.     "To-morrow 
77 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

fortnight,"  I  said,  "and  I  want  somebody  from 
AUermuir  to  come  out  here  in  the  morning  and 
carry  some  baggage.    Will  you  see  to  that?" 

He  said  "Ay,"  and  went  off,  while  I  scrambled 
down  the  hill  to  the  cottage.  Nervousness  pos- 
sessed me,  and  though  it  was  broad  daylight  and 
the  whole  place  lay  plain  before  me,  I  ran  pell- 
mell,  and  did  not  stop  till  I  reached  the  door. 

The  place  was  utterly  empty.  Unmade  beds, 
unwashed  dishes,  a  hearth  strewn  with  the  ashes 
of  peat,  and  dust  thick  on  everything,  proclaimed 
the  absence  of  inmates.  I  began  to  be  horribly 
frightened.  Had  the  shepherd  and  his  sister, 
also,  disappeared?  Was  I  left  alone  in  this 
bleak  place,  with  a  dozen  lonely  miles  between 
me  and  human  dwellings?  I  could  not  return 
alone;  better  this  horrible  place  than  the  un- 
known perils  of  the  out-of-doors.  Hastily  I  bar- 
ricaded the  door,  and  to  the  best  of  my  power 
shuttered  the  windows;  and  then  with  dreary 
forebodings  I  sat  down  to  wait  on  fortune. 

In  a  little  I  heard  a  long  swinging  step  out- 
side and  the  sound  of  dogs.  Joyfully  I  opened 
the  latch,  and  there  was  the  shepherd's  grim  face 
waiting  stolidly  on  what  might  appear. 

At  the  sight  of  me  he  stepped  back.    "What  in 

78 


41 


NOrMAN'S-LAND 

the  Lord's  name  are  ye  daein'  here?"  he  asked. 
Didna  ye  get  enough  afor?'* 

^^Come  in/'  I  said,  sharply.    "I  want  to  talk." 

In  he  came  with  those  blessed  dogs, — what 
a  comfort  it  was  to  look  on  their  great  honest 
faces!  He  sat  down  on  the  untidy  bed  and 
waited. 

''I  came  because  I  could  not  stay  away.  I 
saw  too  much  to  give  me  any  peace  elsewhere. 
I  must  go  back,  even  though  I  risk  my  life  for 
it.  The  cause  of  scholarship  demands  it  as  well 
as  the  cause  of  humanity." 

^'Is  that  a'  the  news  ye  hae?"  he  said.  "Weel, 
I've  mair  to  tell  ye.  Three  weeks  syne  my  sister 
Margit  was  lost,  and  I've  never  seen  her  mair." 

My  jaw  fell,  and  I  could  only  stare  at  him. 

^'I  cam  hame  from  the  hill  at  nightfa'  and  she 
was  gone.  I  lookit  for  her  up  hill  and  doun, 
but  I  couldna  find  her.  Syne  I  think  I  went  daft. 
I  v/ent  to  the  Scarts  and  huntit  them  up  and 
doiin,  but  no  sign  could  I  see.  The  Folk  can 
bids  quiet  enough  when  they  want.  Syne  I  went 
to  Allermuir  and  drank  mysel'  blind, — me,  that's 
a  (jod-fearing  man  and  a  saved  soul;  but  the 
Lord  help  me,  I  didna  ken  what  I  was  at.  That's 
my  news,  and  day  and  night  I  wander  thae 
hills,  seekin'  for  what  I  canna  find." 

79 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

"But,  man,  are  you  mad?"  I  cried.  "Surely 
there  are  neighbours  to  help  you.  There  is  a 
law  in  the  land,  and  you  had  only  to  find  the 
nearest  police-office  and  compel  them  to  assist 
you." 

"What  guid  can  man  dae?"  he  asked.  "An 
army  o'  sodgers  couldna  find  that  hidy-hole. 
Forby,  when  I  went  into  Allermuir  wi'  my  story 
the  folk  thocht  me  daft.  It  was  that  set  me 
drinking,  for — the  Lord  forgive  me! — I  wasna 
my  ain  maister.  I  threepit  till  I  was  hairse,  but 
the  bodies  just  lauch'd."  And  he  lay  back  on 
the  bed  like  a  man  mortally  tired. 

Grim  though  the  tidings  were,  I  can  only  say 
that  my  chief  feeling  was  of  comfort.  Pity  for 
the  new  tragedy  had  swallowed  up  my  fear.  I 
had  now  a  purpose,  and  a  purpose,  too,  not  of 
curiosity  but  of  mercy. 

"I  go  to-morrow  morning  to  the  Muneraw. 
But  first  I  want  to  give  you  something  to  do." 
And  I  drew  roughly  a  chart  of  the  place  on  the 
back  of  a  letter.  "Go  into  Allermuir  to-morrow, 
and  give  this  paper  to  the  landlord  at  the  inn. 
The  letter  will  tell  him  what  to  do.  He  is  to 
raise  at  once  all  the  men  he  can  get,  and  come  to 
the  place  on  the  chart  marked  with  a  cross.  Tell 
him  life  depends  on  his  hurry." 

80 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

The  shepherd  nodded.  "D'ye  ken  the  Folk 
are  watching  for  you?  They  let  me  pass  without 
trouble,  for  they've  nae  use  for  me,  but  I  see  fine 
they're  seeking  you.  Ye'U  no  gang  half  a  mile 
the  morn  afore  they  grip  ye." 

"So  much  the  better,"  I  said.  "That  will  take 
me  quicker  to  the  place  I  want  to  be  at." 

"And  I'm  to  gang  to  AUermuir  the  morn,"  he 
repeated,  with  the  air  of  a  child  conning  a  les- 
son.   "But  what  if  they'll  no  believe  me?" 

"They'll  believe  the  letter." 

"Maybe,"  he  said,  and  relapsed  into  a  doze. 

I  set  myself  to  put  that  house  in  order,  to  rouse 
the  fire,  and  prepare  some  food.  It  was  dismal 
work;  and  meantime  outside  the  night  darkened, 
and  a  great  wind  rose,  which  howled  round  the 
walls  and  lashed  the  rain  on  the  windows. 

VII :   IN  TUAS  MANUS,  DOMINE  I 

I  HAD  not  gone  twenty  yards  from  the  cottage 
door  ere  I  knew  I  was  watched.  I  had  left  the 
shepherd  still  dozing,  in  the  half-conscious  state 
of  a  dazed  and  broken  man.  All  night  the  wind 
had  wakened  me  at  intervals,  and  now  in  the 
half-light  of  morn  the  weather  seemed  more 
vicious  than  ever.  The  wind  cut  my  ears,  the 
whole  firmament  was  full  of  the  rendings  and 

8i 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

thunders  of  the  storm.  Rain  fell  in  blinding 
sheets,  the  heath  was  a  marsh,  and  it  was  the  most 
I  could  do  to  struggle  against  the  hurricane 
which  stopped  my  breath.  And  all  the  while  I 
knew  I  was  not  alone  in  the  desert. 

All  men  know — in  imagination  or  in  experi- 
ence— the  sensation  of  being  spied  on.  The 
nerves  tingle,  the  skin  grows  hot  and  prickly, 
and  there  is  a  queer  sinking  of  the  heart.  In- 
tensify this  common  feeling  a  hundredfold,  and 
you  get  a  tenth  part  of  what  I  suffered.  I  am 
telling  a  plain  tale,  and  record  bare  physical 
facts.  My  lips  stood  out  from  my  teeth  as  I 
heard,  or  felt,  a  rustle  in  the  heather,  a  scraping 
among  stones.  Some  subtle  magnetic  link  seemed 
established  between  my  body  and  the  mysterious 
world  around.  I  became  sick — acutely  sick — 
with  the  ceaseless  apprehension. 

My  fright  became  so  complete  that  when  I 
turned  a  corner  of  rock,  or  stepped  in  deep 
heather,  I  seemed  to  feel  a  body  rub  against 
mine.  This  continued  all  the  way  up  the  Tar- 
awa water,  and  then  up  its  feeder  to  the  little 
lonely  loch.  It  kept  me  from  looking  forward; 
but  it  likewise  kept  me  in  such  a  sweat  of  fright 
that  I  was  ready  to  faint.  Then  the  motion  came 
upon  me  to  test  this  fancy  of  mine.     If  I  was 

82 


NO-MAN'S-LAND      . 

tracked  thus  closely,  clearly  the  trackers  would 
bar  my  way  if  I  turned  back.  So  I  wheeled 
round  and  walked  a  dozen  paces  down  the  glen. 

Nothing  stopped  me.  I  was  about  to  turn 
again,  when  something  made  me  take  six  more 
paces.  At  the  fourth  something  rustled  in  the 
heather,  and  my  neck  was  gripped  as  in  a  vice. 
I  had  already  made  up  my  mind  on  what  I 
would  do.  I  would  be  perfectly  still,  I  would 
conquer  my  fear,  and  let  them  do  as  they  pleased 
with  me  so  long  as  they  took  me  to  their  dwell- 
ing. But  at  the  touch  of  the  hands  my  resolu- 
tions fled.  I  struggled  and  screamed.  Then 
something  was  clapped  on  my  mouth,  speech  and 
strength  went  from  me,  and  once  more  I  was 
back  in  the  maudlin  childhood  of  terror. 
•  ••»..• 

la  the  cave  it  was  always  a  dusky  twilight.  I 
seemed  to  be  lying  in  the  same  place,  with  the 
same  dull  glare  of  firelight  far  off,  and  the  same 
close  stupefying  smell.  One  of  the  creatures 
was  standing  silently  at  my  side,  and  I  asked  him 
some  trivial  question.  He  turned  and  shambled 
dow  n  the  passage,  leaving  me  alone. 

Then  he  returned  with  another,  and  they 
talked  their  guttural  talk  to  me.  I  scarcely 
listened  till  I  remembered  that  in  a  sense  I  was 

83 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

here  of  my  own  accord,  and  on  a  definite  mis- 
sion. The  purport  of  their  speech  seemed  to  be 
that,  now  I  had  returned,  I  must  beware  of  a 
second  flight.  Once  I  had  been  spared;  a  sec- 
ond time  I  should  be  killed  without  mercy. 

I  assented  gladly.  The  Folk  then,  had  some 
use  for  me.    I  felt  my  errand  prospering. 

Then  the  old  creature  which  I  had  seen  before 
crept  out  of  some  corner  and  squatted  beside  me. 
He  put  a  claw  on  my  shoulder,  a  horrible,  cor- 
rugated, skeleton  thing,  hairy  to  the  finger-tips 
and  nailless.  He  grinned,  too,  with  toothless 
gums,  and  his  hideous  old  voice  was  like  a  file 
on  sandstone. 

I  asked  questions,  but  he  would  only  grin  and 
jabber,  looking  now  and  then  furtively  over  his 
shoulder  towards  the  fire. 

I  coaxed  and  humoured  him,  till  he  launched 
into  a  narrative  of  which  I  could  make  nothing. 
It  seemed  a  mere  string  of  names,  with  certain 
words  repeated  at  fixed  intervals.  Then  it 
flashed  on  me  that  this  might  be  a  religious  in- 
cantation. I  had  discovered  remnants  of  a  ritual 
and  a  mythology  among  them.  It  was  possible 
that  these  were  sacred  days,  and  that  I  had 
stumbled  upon  some  rude  celebration. 

I  caught  a  word  or  two  and  repeated  them. 
84 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

He  looked  at  me  curiously.  Then  I  asked  him 
some  leading  question,  and  he  replied  with 
clearness.  My  guess  was  right.  The  midsum- 
mer week  was  the  holy  season  of  the  year,  when 
sacrifices  were  offered  to  the  gods. 

The  notion  of  sacrifices  disquieted  me,  and 
I  would  fain  have  asked  further.  But  the  crea- 
ture would  speak  no  more.  He  hobbled  off,  and 
left  me  alone  in  the  rock-chamber  to  listen  to  a 
strange  sound  which  hung  ceaselessly  about  me. 
It  must  be  the  storm  without,  like  a  park  of  ar- 
tillery rattling  among  the  crags.  A  storm  of 
storms  surely,  for  the  place  echoed  and  hummed, 
and  to  my  unquiet  eye  the  very  rock  of  the 
roof  seemed  to  shake! 

Apparently  my  existence  was  forgotten,  for 
I  lay  long  before  any  one  returned.  Then  it 
was  merely  one  who  brought  food,  the  same 
strange  meal  as  before,  and  left  hastily.  When 
I  had  eaten  I  rose  and  stretched  myself.  My 
hands  and  knees  still  quivered  nervously;  but  I 
was  strong  and  perfectly  well  in  body.  The 
empty,  desolate,  tomb-like  place  was  eerie 
enough  to  scare  any  one;  but  its  emptiness  was 
comfort  when  I  thought  of  its  inmates.  Then 
I  wandered  down  the  passage  towards  the  fire 
which  was  burning  in  loneliness.    Where  had 

85 


1 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

the  Folk  gone?  I  puzzled  over  their  disappear- 
ance. 

Suddenly  sounds  began  to  break  on  my  ear, 
coming  from  some  inner  chamber  at  the  end  of 
that  in  which  the  fire  burned.  I  could  scarcely 
see  for  the  smoke;  but  I  began  to  make  my  way 
towards  the  noise,  feeling  along  the  sides  of  rock. 
Then  a  second  gleam  of  light  seemed  to  rise  be- 
fore me,  and  I  came  to  an  aperture  in  the  wall 
which  gave  entrance  to  another  room. 

This  in  turn  was  full  of  smoke  and  glow — a 
murky  orange  glow,  as  if  from  some  strange 
flame  of  roots.  There  were  the  squat  moving 
figures,  running  in  wild  antics  round  the  fire.  I 
crouched  in  the  entrance,  terrified  and  yet  curi- 
ous, till  I  saw  something  beyond  the  blaze  which 
held  me  dumb.  Apart  from  the  others  and  tied 
to  some  stake  in  the  wall  was  a  woman's  figure, 
and  the  face  was  the  face  of  the  shepherd's  sister. 

My  first  impulse  was  flight.  I  must  get  away 
and  think, — plan,  achieve  some  desperate  way 
of  escape.  I  sped  back  to  the  silent  chamber 
as  if  the  gang  were  at  my  heels.  It  was  still 
empty,  and  I  stood  helplessly  in  the  centre,  look- 
ing at  the  impassable  walls  of  rock  as  a  wearied 
beast  may  look  at  the  walls  of  its  cage.  I  be- 
thought me  of  the  way  I  had  escaped  before  and 

86 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

rushed  thither,  only  to  find  it  blocked  by  a 
huge  contrivance  of  stone.  Yards  and  yards  of 
solid  rock  were  between  me  and  the  upper  air, 
and  yet  through  it  all  came  the  crash  and  whistle 
of  the  storm.  If  I  were  at  my  wits'  end  in  this 
inner  darkness,  there  was  also  high  commotion 
among  the  powers  of  the  air  in  that  upper  world. 
As  I  stood  I  heard  the  soft  steps  of  my  tor- 
mentors. They  seemed  to  think  I  was  meditating 
escape,  for  they  flung  themselves  on  me  and  bore 
me  to  the  ground.  I  did  not  struggle,  and  when 
they  saw  me  quiet,  they  squatted  round  and  be- 
gan to  speak.  They  told  me  of  the  holy  season 
and  its  sacrifices.  At  first  I  could  not  follow 
them;  then  when  I  caught  familiar  words  I 
found  some  clue,  and  they  became  intelligible. 
They  spoke  of  a  woman,  and  I  asked,  "What 
woman?"  With  all  frankness  they  told  me  of 
the  custom  which  prevailed — how  every 
twentieth  summer  a  woman  was  sacrificed  to 
some  devilish  god,  and  by  the  hand  of  one  of  the 
stranger  race.  I  said  nothing,  but  my  whitening 
face  must  have  told  them  a  tale,  though  I  strove 
hard  to  keep  my  composure.  I  asked  if  they 
had  found  the  victims.  "She  is  in  this  place," 
they  said;  "and  as  for  the  man,  thou  art  he." 
And  with  this  they  left  me. 

87 


n 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

I  had  still  some  hours;  so  much  I  gathered 
from  their  talk,  for  the  sacrifice  was  at  sunset. 
Escape  was  cut  off  for  ever.  I  have  always  been 
something  of  a  fatalist,  and  at  the  prospect  of 
the  irrevocable  end  my  cheerfulness  returned. 
I  had  my  pistol,  for  they  had  taken  nothing  from 
me.  I  took  out  the  little  weapon  and  fingered 
it  lovingly.  Hope  of  the  lost,  refuge  of  the  van- 
quished, ease  to  the  coward, — blessed  be  he  who 
first  conceived  it! 

The  time  dragged  on,  the  minutes  grew  to 
hours,  and  still  I  was  left  solitary.  Only  the  mad 
violence  of  the  storm  broke  the  quiet.  It  had  in- 
creased in  fury,  for  the  stones  at  the  mouth  of 
the  exit  by  which  I  had  formerly  escaped  seemed 
to  rock  with  some  external  pressure,  and  cut- 
ting shafts  of  wind  slipped  past  and  cleft  the 
heat  of  the  passage.  What  a  sight  the  ravine 
outside  must  be,  I  thought,  set  in  the  forehead 
of  a  great  hill,  and  swept  clean  by  every  breeze! 
Then  came  a  crashing,  and  the  long  hollow  echo 
of  a  fall.  The  rocks  are  splitting,  said  I;  the 
road  down  the  corrie  will  be  impassable  now  and 
for  evermore. 

I  began  to  grow  weak  with  the  nervousness  of 
the  waiting,  and  by-and-by  I  lay  down  and  fell 
into  a  sort  of  doze,  ^hen  I  next  knew  con- 

88 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

sciousness  I  was  being  roused  by  two  of  the  Folk, 
and  bidden  get  ready.  I  stumbled  to  my  feet, 
felt  for  the  pistol  in  the  hollow  of  my  sleeve,  and 
prepared  to  follow. 

When  we  came  out  into  the  wider  chamber 
the  noise  of  the  storm  was  deafening.  The  roof 
rang  like  a  shield  which  has  been  struck.  I 
noticed,  perturbed  as  I  was,  that  my  guards 
cast  anxious  eyes  around  them,  alarmed,  like 
myself,  at  the  murderous  din.  Nor  was  the 
world  quieter  when  we  entered  the  last  chamber, 
where  the  fire  burned  and  the  remnant  of  the 
Folk  waited.  Wind  had  found  an  entrance  from 
somewhere  or  other,  and  the  flames  blew  here 
and  there,  and  the  smoke  gyrated  in  odd  circles. 
At  the  back,  and  apart  from  the  rest,  I  saw  the 
dazed  eyes  and  the  white  old  drawn  face  of  the 
woman. 

They  led  me  up  beside  her  to  a  place  where 
there  was  a  rude  flat  stone,  hollowed  in  the 
centre,  and  on  it  a  rusty  iron  knife,  which  seemed 
once  to  have  formed  part  of  a  scythe-blade. 
Then  I  saw  the  ceremonial  which  was  marked 
out  for  me.  It  was  the  very  rite  which  I  had 
dimly  figured  as  current  among  a  rude  people, 
and  even  in  that  moment  of  horror  I  had  some- 
thing of  the  scholar's  satisfaction. 

89 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

The  oldest  of  the  Folk,  who  seemed  to  be  a 
sort  of  priest,  came  to  my  side  and  mumbled  a 
form  of  words.  His  fetid  breath  sickened  me; 
his  dull  eyes,  glassy  like  a  brute's  with  age, 
brought  my  knees  together.  He  put  the  knife 
in  my  hands,  dragged  the  terror-stricken  woman 
forward  to  the  altar,  and  bade  me  begin. 

I  began  by  sawing  her  bonds  through.  When 
she  felt  herself  free  she  would  have  fled  back, 
but  stopped  when  I  bade  her.  At  that  moment 
there  came  a  noise  of  rending  and  crashing  as  if 
the  hills  were  falling,  and  for  one  second  the 
eyes  of  the  Folk  were  averted  from  the  frustrated 
sacrifice. 

Only  for  a  moment.  The  next  they  saw  what 
I  had  done,  and  with  one  impulse  rushed  towards 
me.  Then  began  the  last  scene  in  the  play.  I 
sent  a  bullet  through  the  right  eye  of  the  first 
thing  that  came  on.  The  second  shot  went  wide ; 
but  the  third  shattered  the  hand  of  an  elderly 
rufiian  with  a  club.  Never  for  an  instant  did 
they  stop,  and  now  they  were  clutching  at  me. 
I  pushed  the  woman  behind,  and  fired  three 
rapid  shots  in  blind  panic,  and  then,  clutching 
the  scythe,  I  struck  right  and  left  like  a  madman. 

Suddenly  I  saw  the  foreground  sink  before 
my  eyes.     The  roof  sloped  down,  and  with  a 

90 


■ 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

sickening  hiss  a  mountain  of  rock  and  earth 
seemed  to  precipitate  itself  on  the  foremost  of 
my  assailants.  One,  nipped  in  the  middle  by  a 
rock,  caught  my  eye  by  his  hideous  writhings. 
Two  only  remained  in  what  was  now  a  little  suf- 
focating chamber,  with  embers  from  the  fire 
still  smoking  on  the  floor. 

The  woman  caught  me  by  the  hand  and  drew 
me  with  her,  w^ile  the  two  seemed  mute  with 
fear.  "There's  a  road  at  the  back,"  she  screamed. 
"I  ken  it.  I  fand  it  out."  And  she  pulled  me  up 
a  narrow  hole  in  the  rock. 

How  long  we  climbed  I  do  not  know.  We 
were  both  fighting  for  air,  with  the  tightness  of 
throat  and  chest,  and  the  craziness  of  limb  which 
mean  suffocation.  I  cannot  tell  when  we  first 
came  to  the  surface,  but  I  remember  the  woman, 
who  seemed  to  have  the  strength  of  extreme  ter- 
ror, pulling  me  from  the  edge  of  a  crevasse  and 
laying  me  on  a  flat  rock.  It  seemed  to  be  the 
depth  of  winter,  with  sheer-falling  rain  and  a 
wind  that  shook  the  hills. 

Then  I  was  once  more  myself  and  could  look 
about  me.  From  my  feet  yawned  a  sheer  abyss, 
where  once  had  been  a  hill-shoulder.  Some 
great  mass  of  rock  on  the  brow  of  the  mountain 

91 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

had  been  loosened  by  the  storm,  and  in  its  fall 
had  caught  the  lips  of  the  ravine  and  blocked  the 
upper  outlet  from  the  nest  of  dwellings.  For  a 
moment  I  feared  that  all  had  been  destroyed. 

My  feeling — Heaven  help  me! — was  not 
thankfulness  for  God's  mercy  and  my  escape,  but 
a  bitter  mad  regret.  I  rushed  frantically  to  the 
edge,  and  when  I  saw  only  the  blackness  of  dark- 
ness I  wept  weak  tears.  All  the  time  the  storm 
was  tearing  at  my  body,  and  I  had  to  grip  hard 
by  hand  and  foot  to  keep  my  place. 

Suddenly  on  the  brink  of  the  ravine  I  saw  a 
third  figure.  We  two  were  not  the  only  fugi- 
tives.   One  of  the  Folk  had  escaped. 

I  ran  to  it,  and  to  my  surprise  the  thing  as 
soon  as  it  saw  me  rushed  to  meet  me.  At  first 
I  thought  it  was  with  some  instinct  of  self- 
preservation,  but  when  I  saw  its  eyes  I  knew  the 
purpose  of  fight.  Clearly  one  or  other  should 
go  no  more  from  the  place. 

We  were  some  ten  yards  from  the  brink  when 
I  grappled  with  it.  Dimly  I  heard  the  woman 
scream  with  fright,  and  saw  her  scramble  across 
the  hillside.  Then  we  were  tugging  in  a  death- 
throe,  the  hideous  smell  of  the  thing  in  my  face, 
its  red  eyes  burning  into  mine,  and  its  hoarse 
voice    muttering.      Its    strength    seemed    in- 

92 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

credible;  but  I,  too,  am  no  weakling.  We 
tugged  and  strained,  its  nails  biting  into  my 
flesh,  while  I  choked  its  throat  unsparingly. 
Every  second  I  dreaded  lest  we  should  plunge  to- 
gether over  the  ledge,  for  it  was  thither  my  ad- 
versary tried  to  draw  me.  I  caught  my  heel  in 
a  nick  of  rock,  and  pulled  madly  against  it. 

And  then,  while  I  was  beginning  to  glory  with 
the  pride  of  conquest,  my  hope  was  dashed  in 
pieces.  The  thing  seemed  to  break  from  my 
arms,  and,  as  if  in  despair,  cast  itself  headlong 
into  the  impenetrable  darkness.  I  stumbled 
blindly  after  it,  saved  myself  on  the  brink,  and 
fell  back,  sick  and  ill,  into  a  merciful  swoon. 
•  •••••• 

VIII :   NOTE  IN  CONCLUSION  BY  THE  EDITOR 

At  this  point  the  narrative  of  my  unfortunate 
friend,  Mr  Graves  of  St  Chad's,  breaks  off 
abruptly.  He  wrote  it  shortly  before  his  death, 
and  was  prevented  from  completing  it  by  the 
attack  of  heart  failure  which  carried  him  off. 
In  accordance  with  the  instructions  in  his  will, 
I  have  prepared  it  for  publication,  and  now  in 
much  fear  and  hesitation  give  it  to  the  world. 
First,  however,  I  must  supplement  it  by  such 
facts  as  fall  within  my  knt)wledge. 

93 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

The  shepherd  seems  to  have  gone  to  AUer- 
muir  and  by  the  help  of  the  letter  convinced  the 
inhabitants.  A  body  of  men  was  collected  un- 
der the  landlord,  and  during  the  afternoon  set 
out  for  the  hills.  But  unfortunately  the  great 
midsummer  storm — the  most  terrible  of  recent 
climatic  disturbances — had  filled  the  mosses  and 
streams,  and  they  found  themselves  unable  to 
proceed  by  any  direct  road.  Ultimately  late  in 
the  evening  they  arrived  at  the  cottage  of  Tar- 
awa, only  to  find  there  a  raving  woman,  the  shep- 
herd's sister,  who  seemed  crazy  with  brain-fever. 
She  told  some  rambling  story  about  her  escape, 
but  her  narrative  said  nothing  of  Mr  Graves. 
So  they  treated  her  with  what  skill  they  pos- 
sessed, and  sheltered  for  the  night  in  and  around 
the  cottage.  Next  morning  the  storm  had  abated 
a  little,  and  the  woman  had  recovered  something 
of  her  wits.  From  her  they  learned  that  Mr 
Graves  was  lying  in  a  ravine  on  the  side  of  the 
Muneraw  in  imminent  danger  of  his  life.  A 
body  set  out  to  find  him;  but  so  immense  was 
the  landslip,  and  so  dangerous  the  whole  moun- 
tain, that  it  was  nearly  evening  when  they  re- 
covered him  from  the  ledge  of  rock.  He  was 
alive,  but  unconscious,  and  on  bringing  him  back 
to  the  cottage  it  was  clear  that  he  was,  indeed, 

94 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

very  ill.  There  he  lay  for  three  months,  while 
the  best  skill  that  could  be  got  was  procured  for 
him.  By  dint  of  an  uncommon  toughness  of 
constitution  he  survived;  but  it  was  an  old  and 
feeble  man  who  returned  to  Oxford  in  the  early 
winter. 

The  shepherd  and  his  sister  immediately  left 
the  countryside,  and  were  never  more  heard 
of,  unless  they  are  the  pair  of  unfortunates  who 
are  at  present  in  a  Scottish  pauper  asylum,  in- 
capable of  remembering  even  their  names.  The 
people  who  last  spoke  with  them  declared  that 
their  minds  seemed  weakened  by  a  great  shock, 
and  that  it  was  hopeless  to  try  to  get  any  con- 
nected or  rational  statement. 

The  career  of  my  poor  friend  from  that  hour 
was  little  short  of  a  tragedy.  He  awoke  from 
his  illness  to  find  the  world  incredulous;  even 
the  country-folk  of  Allermuir  set  down  the  story 
to  the  shepherd^s  craziness  and  my  friend's 
credulity.  In  Oxford  his  argument  was  received 
with  polite  scorn.  An  account  of  his  experiences 
which  he  drew  up  for  the  ^Times'  was  refused 
by  the  editor;  and  an  article  on  "Primitive  Peo- 
ples of  the  North,"  embodying  what  he  believed 
to  be  the  result  of  his  discoveries,  was  unani- 
mously rejected  by  every  responsible  journal  in 

95 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

Europe.  At  first  he  bore  the  treatment  bravely. 
Reflection  convinced  him  that  the  colony  had 
not  been  destroyed.  Proofs  were  still  awaiting 
his  hand,  and  with  courage  and  caution  he  might 
yet  triumph  over  his  enemies.  But  un- 
fortunately, though  the  ardour  of  the  scholar 
burned  more  fiercely  than  ever  and  all  fear 
seemed  to  have  been  purged  from  his  soul,  the 
last  adventure  had  grievously  sapped  his  bodily 
strength.  In  the  spring  following  his  accident 
he  made  an  effort  to  reach  the  spot — alone,  for 
no  one  could  be  persuaded  to  follow  him  in  what 
was  regarded  as  a  childish  madness.  He  slept  at 
the  now  deserted  cottage  of  Farawa,  but  in  the 
morning  found  himself  unable  to  continue,  and 
with  difficulty  struggled  back  to  the  shepherd's 
cottage  at  Allercleuch,  where  he  was  confined  to 
bed  for  a  fortnight.  Then  it  became  necessary 
for  him  to  seek  health  abroad,  and  it  was  not 
till  the  following  autumn  that  he  attempted  the 
journey  again.  He  fell  sick  a  second  time  at  the 
inn  of  AUermuir,  and  during  his  convalescence 
had  himself  carried  to  a  knoll  in  the  inn  garden, 
whence  a  glimpse  can  be  obtained  of  the  shoulder 
of  the  Muneraw.  There  he  would  sit  for  hours 
with  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  horizon,  and  at  times 
he  would  be  found  weeping  with  weakness  and 

96 


■ 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

vexation.  The  last  attempt  was  made  but  two 
months  before  his  last  illness.  On  this  occasion 
he  got  no  farther  than  Carlisle,  where  he  was 
taken  ill  with  what  proved  to  be  a  premonition 
of  death.  After  that  he  shut  his  lips  tightly,  as 
though  recognising  the  futility  of  his  hopes. 
Whether  he  had  been  soured  by  the  treatment  he 
received,  or  whether  his  brain  had  already  been 
weakened,  he  had  become  a  morose  silent  man, 
and  for  the  two  years  before  his  death  had  few 
friends  and  no  society.  From  the  obituary  no- 
tice in  the  ^Times'  I  take  the  following  para- 
graph, which  shows  in  what  light  the  world  had 
come  to  look  upon  him : — 

^  At  the  outset  of  his  career  he  was  regarded 
as  a  rising  scholar  in  one  department  of  archae- 
ology, and  his  Taffert  lectures  were  a  real  con- 
tribution to  an  obscure  subject.  But  in  after- 
life he  was  led  into  fantastic  speculations;  and 
when  he  found  himself  unable  to  convince  his 
colleagues,  he  gradually  retired  into  himself, 
and  lived  practically  a  hermit's  life  till  his  death. 
His  career,  thus  broken  short,  is  a  sad  instance 
of  the  fascination  which  the  recondite  and  the 
quack  can  exercise  even  over  men  of  approved 
ability." 

And  now  his  own  narrative  is  published,  and 

97 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

the  world  can  judge  as  it  pleases  about  the  amaz- 
ing romance.  The  view  which  will  doubtless  find 
general  acceptance  is  that  the  whole  is  a  figment 
of  the  brain,  begotten  of  some  harmless  moor- 
land adventure  and  the  company  of  such  re- 
ligious maniacs  as  the  shepherd  and  his  sister. 
But  some  who  knew  the  former  sobriety  and 
calmness  of  my  friend's  mind  may  be  disposed 
timorously  and  with  deep  hesitation  to  another 
verdict.  They  may  accept  the  narrative,  and  be- 
lieve that  somewhere  in  those  moorlands  he  met 
with  a  horrible  primitive  survival,  passed 
through  the  strangest  adventure,  and  had  his 
fingers  on  an  epoch-making  discovery.  In  this 
case  they  will  be  inclined  to  sympathise  with  the 
loneliness  and  misunderstanding  of  his  latter 
days.  It  is  not  for  me  to  decide  the  question. 
Though  a  fellow-historian,  the  Picts  are  outside 
my  period,  and  I  dare  not  advance  an  opinion  on 
a  matter  with  which  I  am  not  fully  familiar. 
But  I  would  point  out  that  the  means  of  settling 
the  question  are  still  extant,  and  I  would  call 
upon  some  young  archaeologist,  with  a  reputa- 
tion to  make,  to  seize  upon  the  chance  of  the 
century.  Most  of  the  expresses  for  the  North 
stop  at  Allerfoot;  a  ten-miles'  drive  will  bring 
him  to  Allermuir;  and  then  with  a  fifteen-miles' 

98 


NO-MAN'S-LAND 

walk  he  is  at  Farawa  and  on  the  threshold  of 
discovery.  Let  him  follow  the  burn  and  cross 
the  ridge  and  ascend  the  Scarts  of  the  Muneraw, 
and,  if  he  return  at  all,  it  may  be  with  a  more 
charitable  judgment  of  my  unfortunate  friend. 


99 


II 


THE  FAR  ISLANDS 


"Lady  Alice,  Lady  Louise, 
Between  the  wash  of  the  tumbling  seas 


WHEN  Bran  the  Blessed,  as  the  story  goes, 
followed  the  white  bird  on  the  Last 
Questing,  knowing  that  return  was  not  for  him, 
he  gave  gifts  to  his  followers.  To  Heliodorus  he 
gave  the  gift  of  winning  speech,  and  straight- 
way the  man  went  south  to  the  Italian  seas,  and, 
becoming  a  scholar,  left  many  descendants  who 
sat  in  the  high  places  of  the  Church.  To  Ray- 
mond he  gave  his  steel  battle-axe,  and  bade  him 
go  out  to  the  warrior's  path  and  hew  his  way  to 
a  throne;  which  the  man  forthwith  accom- 
plished, and  became  an  ancestor  in  the  fourth  de- 
gree of  the  first  king  of  Scots.  But  to  Colin,  the 
youngest  and  the  dearest,  he  gave  no  gift,  whis- 
pering only  a  word  in  his  ear  and  laying  a  finger 
on  his  eyelids.    Yet  Colin  was  satisfied,  and  he 

100 


4 


THE  FAR  ISLANB^   . 

alone  of  the  three,  after  their  master's  going,  re- 
mained on  that  coast  of  rock  and  heather. 

In  the  third  generation  from  Colin,  as  our 
elders  counted  years,  came  one  Colin  the  Red, 
who  built  his  keep  on  the  cliffs  of  Acharra  and 
was  a  mighty  sea-rover  in  his  day.  Five  times 
he  sailed  to  the  rich  parts  of  France,  and  a  good 
score  of  times  he  carried  his  flag  of  three  stars 
against  the  easterly  vikings.  A  mere  name  in 
story,  but  a  sounding  piece  of  nomenclature  well 
garnished  with  tales.  A  master-mind  by  all  ac- 
counts, but  cursed  with  a  habit  of  fantasy;  for 
hearing  in  his  old  age  of  a  land  to  the  westward, 
he  forthwith  sailed  into  the  sunset,  and  three 
days  later  was  washed  up,  a  twisted  body,  on  one 
of  the  outer  isles. 

So  far  it  is  but  legend,  but  with  his  grandson, 
Colin  the  Red,  we  fall  into  the  safer  hands  of 
the  chroniclers.  To  him  God  gave  the  unnum- 
bered sorrows  of  story-telling,  for  he  was  a  bard, 
cursed  with  a  bard's  fervours,  and  none  the  less 
a  mighty  warrior  among  his  own  folk.  He  it 
was  who  wrote  the  lament  called  ^The  White 
Waters  of  Usna,'  and  the  exquisite  chain  of 
romances,  ^Glede-red  Gold  and  Grey  Silver.' 
His  tales  were  told  by  many  fires,  down  to  our 
grandfathers'  time,  and  you  will  find  them  still 

lOI 


THE  V/ATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

pounded  at  by  the  folk-lorists.  But  his  airs — 
they  are  eternal.  On  harp  and  pipe  they  have 
lived  through  the  centuries;  twisted  and  tor- 
tured, they  survive  in  many  song-books;  and  I 
declare  that  the  other  day  I  heard  the  most 
beautiful  of  them  all  murdered  by  a  band  at  a 
German  watering-place.  This  Colin  led  the 
wanderer's  life,  for  he  disappeared  at  middle- 
age,  no  one  knew  whither,  and  his  return  was 
long  looked  for  by  his  people.  Some  thought 
that  he  became  a  Christian  monk,  the  holy  man 
living  in  the  sea-girt  isle  of  Cuna,  who  was  found 
dead  in  extreme  old  age,  kneeling  on  the  beach, 
with  his  arms,  contrary  to  the  fashion  of  the 
Church,  stretched  to  the  westward. 

As  history  narrowed  into  bonds  and  forms  the 
descendants  of  Colin  took  Raden  for  their  sur- 
name, and  settled  more  firmly  on  their  lands  in 
the  long  peninsula  of  crag  and  inlets  which  runs 
west  to  the  Atlantic.  Under  Donald  of  the  Isles 
they  harried  the  Kings  of  Scots,  or,  on  their  own 
authority,  made  war  on  Macleans  and  Mac- 
ranalds,  till  their  flag  of  the  three  stars,  their 
badge  of  the  grey-goose  feather,  and  their  on- 
cry  of  ^'Cuna"  were  feared  from  Lochalsh  to 
Cantire.  Later  they  made  a  truce  with  the  King, 
and  entered  into  the  royal  councils.    For  years 

102 


THE  FAR  ISLANDS 

they  warded  the  western  coast,  and  as  king's  lieu- 
tenants smoked  out  the  inferior  pirates  of  Eigg 
and  Toronsay.  A  Raden  was  made  a  Lord  of 
Sleat,  another  was  given  lands  in  the  low  country 
and  the  name  Baron  of  Strathyre,  but  their  hon- 
ours were  transitory  and  short  as  their  lives. 
Rarely  one  of  the  house  saw  middle  age.  A 
bold,  handsome,  and  stirring  race,  it  was  their 
fate  to  be  cut  off  in  the'  rude  warfare  of  the  times, 
or.  if  peace  had  them  in  its  clutches,  to  man  ves- 
ocl  and  set  ofiP  once  more  on  those  mad  western 
voyages  which  were  the  weird  of  the  family. 
TJiree  of  the  name  were  found  drowned  on  the 
far  shore  of  Cuna;  more  than  one  sailed  straight 
out  of  the  ken  of  mortals.  One  rode  with  the 
Good  Lord  James  on  the  pilgrimage  of  the 
Heart  of  Bruce,  and  died  by  his  leader's  side 
in  the  Saracen  battle.  Long  afterwards  a  Raden 
led  the  western  men  against  the  Cheshire  archers 
at  Flodden,  and  was  slain  himself  in  the  steel 
circle  around  the  king. 

But  the  years  brought  peace  and  a  greater 
wealth,  and  soon  the  cold  stone  tower  was  left 
solitary  bn  the  headland,  and  the  new  house  of 
Kinlochuna  rose  by  the  green  links  of  the  stream. 
The  family  changed  its  faith,  and  an  Episcopal 
chaplain  took  the  place  of  the  old  mass-priest  in 

103 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

the  tutoring  of  the  sons.  Radens  were  in  the  '15 
and  the  '45.  They  rose  with  Bute  to  power,  and 
they  long  disputed  the  pride  of  Dundas  in  the 
northern  capital.  They  intermarried  with  great 
English  houses  till  the  sons  of  the  family  were 
Scots  only  in  name,  living  much  abroad  or  in 
London,  many  of  them  English  landowners  by 
virtue  of  a  mother's  blood.  Soon  the  race  was 
of  the  common  over-civilised  type,  graceful, 
well-mannered,  with  abundant  good  looks,  but 
only  once  in  a  generation  reverting  to  the  rugged 
northern  strength.  Eton  and  Oxford  had  in  turn 
displaced  the  family  chaplain,  and  the  house  by 
the  windy  headland  grew  emptier  and  emptier 
save  when  grouse  and  deer  brought  home  its 
fickle  masters. 

II 

A  CHILDISH  illness  brought  Colin  to  Kinlochuna 
when  he  had  reached  the  mature  age  of  five, 
and  delicate  health  kept  him  there  for  the 
greater  part  of  the  next  six  years.  During  the 
winter  he  lived  in  London,  but  from  the  late 
northern  spring,  through  all  the  long  bright 
summers,  he  lived  in  the  great  tenantless  place 
without  company — for  he  was  an  only  child.  A 
French  nurse  had  the  charge  of  his  doings,  and 

104 


THE  FAR  ISLANDS 

when  he  had  passed  through  the  formality  of  les- 
sons there  were  the  long  pinewoods  at  his  dis- 
posal, the  rough  moor,  the  wonderful  black  holes 
with  the  rich  black  mud  in  them,  and  best  of  all 
the  bay  of  Acharra,  below  the  headland,  with 
C'una  lying  in  the  waves  a  mile  to  the  west.  At 
such  times  his  father  was  busy  elsewhere;  his 
mother  was  dead ;  the  family  had  few  near  rela- 
tives; so  he  passed  a  solitary  childhood  in  the 
company  of  seagulls  and  the  birds  of  the  moor. 

His  time  for  the  beach  was  the  afternoon.  On 
the  left  as  you  go  down  through  the  woods  from 
the  house  there  runs  out  the  great  headland  of 
Acharra,  red  and  grey  with  mosses,  and  with  a 
nimbus  always  of  screaming  seafowl.  To  the 
right  runs  a  low  beach  of  sand,  passing  into 
roiugh  limestone  boulders  and  then  into  the 
heather  of  the  wood.  This  in  turn  is  bounded  by 
a  reef  of  low  rocks  falling  by  gentle  breaks  to 
the  water's  edge.  It  is  crowned  with  a  tangle  of 
heath  and  fern,  bright  at  most  seasons  with 
flowers,  and  dwarf  pine-trees  straggle  on  its 
crest  till  one  sees  the  meaning  of  its  Gaelic  name, 
*^The  Ragged  Cock's-Comb."  This  place  was 
Colin's  playground  in  fine  weather.  When  it 
blew  rain  or  snow  from  the  north  he  dwelt  in- 
doors among  dogs  and  books,  puzzling  his  way 

105 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

through  great  volumes  from  his  father's  shelves. 
But  when  the  mild  west-wind  weather  fell  on 
the  sea,  then  he  would  lie  on  the  hot  sand — 
Amelie  the  nurse  reading  a  novel  on  the  nearest 
rock — and  kick  his  small  heels  as  he  followed  his 
fancy.  He  built  great  sand  castles  to  the  shape 
of  Acharra  old  tower,  and  peopled  them  with 
preposterous  knights  and  ladies;  he  drew  great 
moats  and  rivers  for  the  tide  to  fill;  he  fought 
battles  innumerable  with  crackling  seaweed,  till 
Amelie,  with  her  sharp  cry  of  "Colin,  Colin," 
would  carry  him  houseward  for  tea. 

Two  fancies  remained  in  his  mind  through 
those  boyish  years.  One  was  about  the  mys- 
terious shining  sea  before  him.  In  certain 
weathers  it  seemed  to  him  a  solid  pathway. 
Cuna,  the  little  ragged  isle,  ceased  to  block  the 
horizon,  and  his  own  white  road  ran  away  down 
into  the  west,  till  suddenly  it  stopped  and  he  saw 
no  farther.  He  knew  he  ought  to  see  more,  but 
always  at  one  place,  just  when  his  thoughts  were 
pacing  the  white  road  most  gallantly,  there  came 
a  baffling  mist  to  his  sight,  and  he  found  him- 
self looking  at  a  commonplace  sea  with  Cuna 
lying  very  real  and  palpable  in  the  offing.  It 
was  a  vexatious  limitation,  for  all  his  dreams 
were  about  this  pathway.     One  day  in  June, 

io6 


THE  FAR  ISLANDS 

when  the  waters  slept  in  a  deep  heat,  he  came 
down  the  sands  barefoot,  and  lo!  there  was  his 
pathway.  For  one  moment  things  seemed  clear, 
the  mist  had  not  gathered  on  the  road,  and  with 
a  cry  he  ran  down  to  the  tide's  edge  and  waded 
in.  The  touch  of  water  dispelled  the  illusion, 
and  almost  in  tears  he  saw  the  cruel  back  of 
Cuna  blotting  out  his  own  magic  way. 

The  other  fancy  was  about  the  low  ridge  of 
rocks  which  bounded  the  bay  on  the  right.  His 
walks  had  never  extended  beyond  it,  either  on 
the  sands  or  inland,  for  that  way  lay  a  steep  hill- 
side and  a  perilous  bog.  But  often  on  the  sands 
he  had  come  to  its  foot  and  wondered  what 
country  lay  beyond.  He  made  many  efforts  to 
explore  it,  difficult  efforts,  for  the  vigilant 
Amelie  had  first  to  be  avoided.  Once  he  was 
almost  at  the  top  when  some  seaweed  to  which  he 
clung  gave  way,  and  he  rolled  back  again  to  the 
soft  warm  sand.  By-and-by  he  found  that  he 
knew  what  was  beyond.  A  clear  picture  had 
built  itself  up  in  his  brain  of  a  mile  of  reefs,  with 
sand  in  bars  between  them,  and  beyond  all  a  sea- 
wood  of  alders  slipping  from  the  hilPs  skirts  to 
the  water's  edge.  This  was  not  what  he  wanted 
in  his  explorations,  so  he  stopped,  till  one  day 
it  struck  him  that  the  westward  view  might  re- 

107 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

veal  something  beyond  the  hogbacked  Cuna. 
One  day,  pioneering  alone,  he  scaled  the  steepest 
heights  of  the  sea-weed  and  pulled  his  chin  over 
the  crest  of  the  ridge.  There,  sure  enough,  was 
his  picture — a  mile  of  reefs  and  the  tattered  sea- 
wood.  He  turned  eagerly  seawards.  Cuna  still 
lay  humped  on  the  waters,  but  beyond  it  he 
seemed  to  see  his  shining  pathway  running  far 
to  a  speck  which  might  be  an  island.  Crazy 
with  pleasure  he  stared  at  the  vision,  till  slowly 
it  melted  into  the  waves,  and  Cuna  the  in- 
exorable once  more  blocked  the  skyline.  He 
climbed  down,  his  heart  in  a  doubt  between 
despondency  and  hope. 

It  was  the  last  day  of  such  fancies,  for  on  the 
morrow  he  had  to  face  the  new  world  of  school. 

At  Cecil's  Colin  found  a  new  life  and  a  thou- 
sand new  interests.  His  early  delicacy  had  been 
driven  away  by  the  sea-winds  of  Acharra,  and 
he  was  rapidly  growing  up  a  tall,  strong  child, 
straight  of  limb  like  all  his  house,  but  sinewy 
and  alert  beyond  his  years.  He  learned  new 
games  with  astonishing  facility,  became  a  fast 
bowler  with  a  genius  for  twists,  and  a  Rugby 
three-quarters  full  of  pluck  and  cunning.  He 
soon  attained  to  the  modified  popularity  of  a 

io8 


THE  FAR  ISLANDS 

private  school,  and,  being  essentially  clean, 
strong,  and  healthy,  found  himself  a  mark  for 
his  juniors'  worship  and  a  favourite  v^ith 
masters.  The  homage  did  not  spoil  him,  for  no 
boy  was  ever  less  self-possessed.  On  the  cricket- 
ground  and  the  football-field  he  was  a  leader,  but 
in  private  he  had  the  nervous,  sensitive  man- 
ners of  the  would-be  recluse.  No  one  ever  ac- 
cused him  of  "side" — his  polite,  halting  address 
was  the  same  to  junior  and  senior;  and  the  re- 
sult was  that  wild  affection  which  simplicity  in 
the  great  is  wont  to  inspire.  He  spoke  with  a 
pure  accent,  in  which  lurked  no  northern  trace; 
in  a  little  he  had  forgotten  all  about  his  birth- 
place and  his  origin.  His  name  had  at  first  ac- 
quired for  him  the  sobriquet  of  "Scottie,"  but  the 
title  was  soon  dropped  from  its  manifest  inapt- 
ness. 

In  his  second  year  at  Cecil's  he  caught  a  prev- 
alent fever,  and  for  days  lay  very  near  the  brink 
of  death.  At  his  worst  he  was  wildly  delirious, 
crying  ceaselessly  for  Acharra  and  the  beach  at 
Kinlochuna.  But  as  he  grew  convalescent  the 
absorption  remained,  and  for  the  moment  he 
seemed  to  have  forgotten  his  southern  life.  He 
found  himself  playing  on  the  sands,  always  with 
the  boundary  ridge  before  him,  and  the  hump  of 

109 


THE  WATCHER  BY.  THE  THRESHOLD 

Cuna  rising  in  the  sea.  When  dragged  back  to 
his  environment  by  the  inquiries  of  Bellew,  his 
special  friend,  who  came  to  sit  with  him,  he  was 
so  abstracted  and  forgetful  that  the  good  Bel- 
lew  was  seriously  grieved.  "The  chap's  a  bit 
cracked,  you  know,"  he  announced  in  hall. 
"Didn't  know  me.  Asked  me  what  ^footer' 
meant  when  I  told  him  about  the  Bayswick 
match,  and  talked  about  nothing  but  a  lot  of 
heathen  Scotch  names." 

One  dream  haunted  Colin  throughout  the  days 
of  his  recovery.  He  was  tormented  with  a  furi- 
ous thirst,  poorly  assuaged  at  long  intervals  by 
watered  milk.  So  when  he  crossed  the  borders 
of  dreamland  his  first  search  was  always  for  a 
well.  He  tried  the  brushwood  inland  from  the 
beach,  but  it  was  dry  as  stone.  Then  he  climbed 
with  difficulty  the  boundary  ridge,  and  found  lit- 
tle pools  of  salt  water,  while  far  on  the  other 
side  gleamed  the  dark  black  bog-holes.  Here 
was  not  what  he  sought,  and  he  was  in  deep 
despair,  till  suddenly  over  the  sea  he  caught  a 
glimpse  of  his  old  path  running  beyond  Cuna  to 
a  bank  of  mist.  He  rushed  down  to  the  tide's 
edge,  and  to  his  amazement  found  solid  ground. 
Now  was  the  chance  for  which  he  had  long 
looked,  and  he  ran  happily  westwards,  till  of 

no 


I 


THE  FAR  ISLANDS 

a  sudden  the  solid  earth  seemed  to  sink  with  him, 
and  he  was  in  the  waters  struggling.  But  two 
curious  things  he  noted.  One  was  that  the  far 
bank  of  mist  seemed  to  open  for  a  pin-point  of 
time,  and  he  had  a  gleam  of  land.  He  saw  noth- 
ing distinctly,  only  a  line  which  was  not  mist  and 
was  not  water.  The  second  was  that  the  water 
was  fresh,  and  as  he  was  drinking  from  this  curi- 
ous new  fresh  sea  he  awoke.  The  dream  was  re- 
peated three  times  before  he  left  the  sick-room. 
Always  he  wakened  at  the  same  place,  always  he 
quenched  his  thirst  in  the  fresh  sea,  but  never 
again  did  the  mist  open  for  him  and  show  him 
the  strange  country. 

From  Cecil's  he  went  to  the  famous  school 
which  was  the  tradition  in  his  family.  The 
Head  spoke  to  his  house-master  of  his  coming. 
,"We  are  to  have  another  Raden  here,"  he  said, 
"and  I  am  glad  of  it,  if  the  young  one  turns  out 
to  be  anything  like  the  others.  There's  a  good 
deal  of  dry-rot  among  the  boys  just  now.  They 
are  all  too  old  for  their  years  and  too  wise  in  the 
wrong  way.  They  haven't  anything  like  the  en- 
thusiasm in  games  they  had  twenty  years  ago 
when  I  first  came  here.  I  hope  this  young  Raden 
will  stir  them  up."    The  house-master  agreed, 

III 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

and  when  he  first  caught  sight  of  Colin^s  slim, 
well-knit  figure,  looked  into  the  handsome 
kindly  eyes,  and  heard  his  curiously  diffident 
speech,  his  doubts  vanished.  "We  have  got  the 
right  stuff  now,"  he  told  himself,  and  the  senior 
for  whom  the  new  boy  fagged  made  the  same 
comment. 

From  the  anomalous  insignificance  of  f  agdom 
Colin  climbed  up  the  School,  leaving  every- 
where a  record  of  honest  good-nature.  He  was 
allowed  to  forget  his  cricket  and  football,  but 
in  return  he  was  initiated  into  the  mysteries  of 
the  river.  Water  had  always  been  his  delight, 
so  he  went  through  the  dreary  preliminaries  of 
being  coached  in  a  tub-pair  till  he  learned  to 
swing  steadily  and  get  his  arms  quickly  for- 
ward. Then  came  the  stages  of  scratch  fours 
and  scratch  eights,  till  after  a  long  apprentice- 
ship he  was  promoted  to  the  dignity  of  a  thwart 
in  the  Eight  itself.  In  his  last  year  he  was  Cap- 
tain of  Boats,  a  position  which  joins  the  re- 
sponsibility of  a  Cabinet  Minister  to  the  rap- 
turous popular  applause  of  a  successful  war- 
rior. Nor  was  he  the  least  distinguished  of  a 
great  band.  With  Colin  at  seven  the  School  won 
the  Ladies'  after  the  closest  race  on  record. 

The  Head's  prophecy  fell  true,  for  Colin  was 

112 


THE  FAR  ISLANDS 

a  born  leader.  For  all  his  good-humour  and 
diffidence  of  speech,  he  had  a  trick  of  shutting 
his  teeth  which  all  respected.  As  captain  he  was 
the  idol  of  the  school,  and  he  ruled  it  well  and 
justly.  For  the  rest,  he  was  a  curious  boy  with 
none  of  the  ordinary  young  enthusiasms,  re- 
served for  all  his  kindliness.  At  house 
"shouters"  his  was  not  the  voice  which  led  the 
stirring  strains  of  "Stroke  out  all  you  know," 
though  his  position  demanded  it.  He  cared  lit- 
tle about  work,  and  the  School-house  scholar, 
who  fancied  him  from  his  manner  a  devotee  of 
things  intellectual,  found  in  Colin  but  an  af- 
fected interest  He  read  a  certain  amount  of 
modern  poetry  with  considerable  boredom;  fic- 
tion he  never  opened.  The  truth  was  that  he 
had  a  romance  in  his  own  brain  which,  willy 
nilly,  would  play  itself  out,  and  which  left  him 
small  relish  for  the  pale  second-hand  inanities 
of  art.  Often,  when  with  others  he  would  lie  in 
the  deep  meadows  by  the  river  on  some  hot  sum- 
mer's day,  his  fancies  would  take  a  curious 
colour.  He  adored  the  soft  English  landscape, 
the  lush  grasses,  the  slow  streams,  the  ancient 
secular  trees.  But  as  he  looked  into  the  hazy 
green  distance  a  colder  air  would  blow  on  his 
cheek,  a  pungent  smell  of  salt  and  pines  would 

113 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

be  for  a  moment  in  his  nostrils,  and  he  would 
be  gazing  at  a  line  of  waves  on  a  beach,  a  ridge 
of  low  rocks,  and  a  shining  sea-path  running  out 
to — ah,  that  he  could  not  tell!  The  envious 
Cuna  would  suddenly  block  all  the  vistas.  He 
had  constantly  the  vision  before  his  eyes,  and  he 
strove  to  strain  into  the  distance  before  Cuna 
should  intervene.  Once  or  twice  he  seemed  al- 
most to  achieve  it.  He  found  that  by  keeping 
on  the  top  of  the  low  rock- ridge  he  could  cheat 
Cuna  by  a  second  or  two,  and  get  a  glimpse  of  a 
misty  something  out  in  the  west.  The  vision  took 
odd  times  for  recurring, — once  or  twice  in  lec- 
ture, once  on  the  cricket-ground,  many  times  in 
the  fields  of  a  Sunday,  and  once  while  he  paddled 
down  to  the  start  in  a  Trials  race.  It  gave  him  a 
keen  pleasure:  it  was  his  private  domain,  where 
at  any  moment  he  might  make  some  enchanting 
discovery. 

At  this  time  he  began  to  spend  his  vacations 
at  Kinlochuna.  His  father,  an  elderly  ex-diplo- 
mat, had  permanently  taken  up  his  abode  there, 
and  was  rapidly  settling  into  the  easy  life  of  the 
Scots  laird.  Colin  returned  to  his  native  place 
without  enthusiasm.  His  childhood  there  had 
been  full  of  lonely  hours,  and  he  had  come  to 
like  the  warm  south  country.     He  found  the 

114 


THE  FAR  ISLANDS 

house  full  of  people,  for  his  father  entertained 
hugely,  and  the  talk  was  of  sport  and  sport  alone. 
As  a  rule,  your  very  great  athlete  is  bored  by 
Scots  shooting.  Long  hours  of  tramping  and 
crouching  among  heather  cramp  without  fully 
exercising  the  body;  and  unless  he  has  the  love  of 
the  thing  ingrained  in  him,  the  odds  are  that  he 
will  wish  himself  home.  The  father,  in  his  new- 
found admiration  for  his  lot,  was  content  to  face 
all  weathers;  the  son  found  it  an  effort  to  keep 
pace  with  such  vigour.  He  thought  upon  the 
sunlit  fields  and  reedy  watercourses  with  regret, 
and  saw  little  in  the  hills  but  a  rough  waste 
scarred  with  rock  and  sour  with  mosses. 

He  read  widely  throughout  these  days,  for  his 
father  had  a  taste  for  modern  letters,  and  new 
books  lay  littered  about  the  rooms.  He  read 
queer  Celtic  tales  which  he  thought  "sickening 
rot,"  and  mild  Celtic  poetry  which  he  failed  to 
understand.  Among  the  guests  was  a  noted 
manufacturer  of  fiction,  whom  the  elder  Raden 
had  met  somewhere  and  bidden  to  Kinlochuna. 
He  had  heard  the  tale  of  Colin's  ancestors  and 
the  sea  headland  of  Acharra,  and  one  day  he 
asked  the  boy  to  show  him  the  place,  as  he 
wished  to  make  a  story  of  it.  Colin  assented  un- 
willingly, for  he  had  been  slow  to  visit  this  place 

115 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

of  memories,  and  he  did  not  care  to  make  Kts 
first  experiment  in  such  company.  But  the 
gentleman  would  not  be  gainsaid,  so  the  two 
scrambled  through  the  sea-wood  and  climbed 
the  low  ridge  which  looked  over  the  bay.  The 
weather  was  mist  and  drizzle;  Cuna  had  wholly 
hidden  herself,  and  the  bluff  Acharra  loomed 
hazy  and  far.  Colin  was  oddly  disappointed: 
this  reality  was  a  poor  place  compared  with  his 
fancies.  His  companion  stroked  his  peaked 
beard,  talked  nonsense  about  Colin  the  Red  and 
rhetoric  about  ^^the  spirit  of  the  misty  grey 
weather  having  entered  into  the  old  tale." 
"Think,"  he  cried;  "to  those  old  warriors  be- 
yond that  bank  of  mist  was  the  whole  desire  of 
life,  the  Golden  City,  the  Far  Islands,  what- 
ever you  care  to  call  it."  Colin  shivered,  as  if 
his  holy  places  had  been  profaned,  set  down  the 
man  in  his  mind  most  unjustly  as  an  "awful  lit- 
tle cad,"  and  hurried  him  back  to  the  house. 
•  •..••• 

Oxford  received  the  boy  with  open  arms,  for 
his  reputation  had  long  preceded  him.  To  the 
majority  of  men  he  was  the  one  freshman  of  his 
year,  and  gossip  was  busy  with  his  prospects. 
Nor  was  gossip  disappointed.  In  his  first  year 
he  rowed  seven  in  the  Eight.     The  next  year 

ii6 


THE  FAR  ISLANDS 

he  was  captain  of  his  college  boats,  and  a  year 
later  the  O.U.B.C.  made  him  its  president.  For 
three  years  he  rowed  in  the  winning  Eight,  and 
old  coaches  agreed  that  in  him  the  perfect  seven 
had  been  found.  It  was  he  who  in  the  famous 
race  of  i8 —  caught  up  in  the  last  three  hundred 
yards  the  quickened  stroke  which  gave  Oxford 
victory.  As  he  grew  to  his  full  strength  he  be- 
came a  splendid  figure  of  a  man — tall,  supple, 
deep-chested  for  all  his  elegance.  His  quick 
dark  eyes  and  his  kindly  hesitating  manners 
made  people  think  his  face  extraordinarily  hand- 
some, when  really  it  was  in  no  way  above  the 
common.  But  his  whole  figure,  as  he  stood  in  his 
shorts  and  sweater  on  the  raft  at  Putney,  was 
so  full  of  youth  and  strength  that  people  in- 
voluntarily smiled  when  they  saw  him — a  smile 
of  pleasure  in  so  proper  a  piece  of  manhood. 

Colin  enjoyed  life  hugely  at  Oxford,  for  to 
one  so  frank  and  well  equipped  the  place  gave 
of  its  best.  He  was  the  most  distinguished  per- 
sonage of  his  day  there,  but,  save  to  school  friends 
and  the  men  he  met  officially  on  the  river,  he  was 
little  known.  His  diffidence  and  his  very  real 
exclusiveness  kept  him  from  being  the  centre  of 
a  host  of  friends.  His  own  countrymen  in  the 
place  were  utterly  nonplussed  by  him.     They 

117 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

claimed  him  eagerly  as  a  fellow,  but  he  had  none 
of  the  ordinary  characteristics  of  the  race.  There 
were  Scots  of  every  description  around  him — 
pale-faced  Scots  who  worked  incessantly,  meta- 
physical Scots  who  talked  in  the  Union,  robus- 
tious Scots  who  played  football.  They  were  all 
men  of  hearty  manners  and  many  enthusiasms, 
— who  quoted  Burns  and  dined  to  the  immortal 
bard's  honour  every  25th  of  January;  who  told 
interminable  Scotch  stories,  and  fell  into 
fervours  over  national  sports,  dishes,  drinks,  and 
religions.  To  the  poor  Colin  it  was  all  inex- 
plicable. At  the  remote  house  of  Kinlochuna  he 
had  never  heard  of  a  Free  Kirk  or  a  haggis.  He 
had  never  read  a  line  of  Burns,  Scott  bored  him 
exceedingly,  and  in  all  honesty  he  thought  Scots 
games  inferior  to  southern  sports.  He  had  no 
great  love  for  the  bleak  country,  he  cared  noth- 
ing for  the  traditions  of  his  house,  so  he  was 
promptly  set  down  by  his  compatriots  as  "de- 
nationalised and  degenerate." 

He  was  idle,  too,  during  these  years  as  far 
as  his  "schools"  were  concerned,  but  he  was  al- 
ways very  intent  upon  his  own  private  busi- 
ness. Whenever  he  sat  down  to  read,  when  he 
sprawled  on  the  grass  at  river  picnics,  in  chapel, 
in  lecture — in  short,  at  any  moment  when  his 

118 


II 


THE  FAR  ISLANDS 

body  was  at  rest  and  his  mind  at  leisure — his 
fancies  were  off  on  the  same  old  path.  Things 
had  changed,  however,  in  that  country.  The 
boyish  device  of  a  hard  road  running  over  the 
w^aters  had  gone,  and  now  it  was  invariably  a 
boat  which  he  saw  beached  on  the  shingle.  It 
differed  in  shape.  At  first  it  was  an  ugly  salmon- 
coble,  such  as  the  fishermen  used  for  the  nets  at 
Kinlochuna.  Then  it  passed,  by  rapid  transi- 
tions, through  a  canvas  skiff  which  it  took  good 
watermanship  to  sit,  a  whiff,  an  ordinary  ding- 
hey,  till  at  last  it  settled  itself  into  a  long  rough 
boat,  pointed  at  both  ends,  with  oar-holes  in  the 
sides  instead  of  row-locks.  It  was  the  devil's 
o\\  n  business  to  launch  it,  and  launch  it  anew  he 
was  compelled  to  for  every  journey;  for  though 
he  left  it  bound  in  a  little  rock  hollow  below  the 
ridge  after  landing,  yet  when  he  returned,  lo! 
there  was  the  clumsy  thing  high  and  dry  upon 
the  beach. 

The  odd  point  about  the  new  venture  was  that 
Cuna  had  ceased  to  trouble  him.  As  soon  as  he 
had  pulled  his  first  stroke  the  island  disappeared, 
and  nothing  lay  before  him  but  the  sea-fog.  Yet, 
try  as  he  might,  he  could  come  little  nearer.  The 
shores  behind  him  might  sink  and  lessen,  but  the 
impenetrable  mist  was  still  miles  to  the  west- 

119 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

ward.  Sometimes  he  rowed  so  far  that  the  shore 
was  a  thin  line  upon  the  horizon,  but  when  he 
turned  the  boat  it  seemed  to  ground  in  a  second 
on  the  beach.  The  long  laboured  journey  out 
and  the  instantaneous  return  puzzled  him  at 
first,  but  soon  he  became  used  to  them.  His  one 
grief  was  the  mist,  which  seemed  to  grow  denser 
as  he  neared  it.  The  sudden  glimpse  of  land 
which  he  had  got  from  the  ridge  of  rock  in  the 
old  boyish  days  was  now  denied  him,  and  with 
the  denial  came  a  keener  exultation  in  the  quest. 
Somewhere  in  the  west,  he  knew,  must  be  land, 
and  in  this  land  a  well  of  sweet  water — for  so  he 
had  interpreted  his  feverish  dream.  Sometimes, 
when  the  wind  blew  against  him,  he  caught 
scents  from  it — generally  the  scent  of  pines,  as 
on  the  little  ridge  on  the  shore  behind  him. 

One  day  on  his  college  barge,  while  he  was 
waiting  for  a  picnic  party  to  start,  he  seemed  to 
get  nearer  than  before.  Out  on  that  western  sea, 
as  he  saw  it,  it  was  fresh,  blowing  weather,  with 
a  clear  hot  sky  above.  It  was  hard  work  rowing, 
for  the  wind  was  against  him,  and  the  sun 
scorched  his  forehead.  The  air  seemed  full  of 
scents — and  sounds,  too,  sounds  of  far-away  surf 
and  wind  in  trees.  He  rested  for  a  moment  on 
his  oars  and  turned  his  head.     His  heart  beat 

120 


THE  FAR  ISLANDS 

luickly,  for  there  was  a  rift  in  the  mist,  and  far 
rough  a  line  of  sand  ringed  with  snow-white 

team. 
Somebody  shook  him  roughly, — "Come  on, 

Colin,  old  man.    They're  all  waiting  for  you. 

Do  you  know  you've  been  half  asleep?" 

Colin  rose  and  followed  silently,  with  drowsy 

eyes.    His  mind  was  curiously  excited.    He  had 

looked  inside  the  veil  of  mist.    Now  he  knew 

what  was  the  land  he  sought. 

He  made  the  voyage  often,  now  that  the  spell 
was  broken.  It  was  short  work  to  launch  the 
boat,  and,  whereas  it  had  been  a  long  pull 
formerly,  now  it  needed  only  a  few  strokes  to 
bring  him  to  the  Rim  of  the  Mist.  There  was 
no  chance  of  getting  farther,  and  he  scarcely 
tried.  He  was  content  to  rest  there,  in  a  world  of 
curious  scents  and  sounds,  till  the  mist  drew 
down  and  he  was  driven  back  to  shore. 

The  change  in  his  environment  troubled  him 
little.  For  a  man  who  has  been  an  idol  at  the 
University  to  fall  suddenly  into  the  compara- 
tive insignificance  of  Town  is  often  a  bitter  ex- 
perience; but  Colin,  whose  thoughts  were  not 
ambitious,  scarcely  noticed  it.  He  found  that 
he  was  less  his  own  master  than  before,  but  he 

121 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

humbled  himself  to  his  new  duties  without  com- 
plaint. Many  of  his  old  friends  were  about  him ; 
he  had  plenty  of  acquaintances;  and,  being  "suf- 
ficient unto  himself,"  he  was  unaccustomed  to 
ennui.  Invitations  showered  upon  him  thick 
and  fast.  Match-making  mothers,  knowing  his 
birth  and  his  father's  income,  and  reflecting  that 
he  was  the  only  child  of  his  house,  desired  him 
as  a  son-in-law.  He  was  bidden  welcome  every- 
where, and  the  young  girls,  for  whose  sake  he 
was  thus  courted,  found  in  him  an  attractive 
mystery.  The  tall  good-looking  athlete,  with 
the  kind  eyes  and  the  preposterously  nervous 
manner,  wakened  their  maidenly  sympathies. 
As  they  danced  with  him  or  sat  next  to  him  at 
dinner,  they  talked  fervently  of  Oxford,  of  the 
north,  of  the  army,  of  his  friends.  "Stupid,  but 
nice,  my  dear,"  was  Lady  AfHint's  comment;  and 
Miss  Clara  Etheridge,  the  beauty  of  the  year, 
declared  to  her  friends  that  he  was  a  "dear  boy, 
but  so  awkward."  He  was  always  forgetful,  and 
ever  apologetic ;  and  when  he  forgot  the  Shand- 
wicks'  theatre-party,  the  Herapaths'  dance,  and 
at  least  a  dozen  minor  matters,  he  began  to  ac- 
quire the  reputation  of  a  cynic  and  a  recluse. 

"You're  a  queer  chap.  Col,"  Lieutenant  Bel- 
lew  said  in  expostulation. 

122 


•i 


THE  FAR  ISLANDS 

Colin  shrugged  his  shoulders ;  he  was  used  to 
the  description. 

^'Do  you  know  that  Clara  Etheridge  was  try- 
ing all  she  knew  to  please  you  this  afternoon, 
and  you  looked  as  if  you  weren't  listening?  Most 
men  would  have  given  their  ears  to  be  in  your 
place." 

^^I'm  awfully  sorry,  but  I  thought  I  was  very 
polite  to  her." 

'And  why  weren't  you  at  the  Marshams' 
show?" 

'Oh,  I  went  to  polo  with  Collinson  and  an- 
other man.  And,  I  say,  old  chap,  I'm  not  com- 
ing to  the  Logans  to-morrow.  I've  got  a  fence 
on  with  Adair  at  the  school." 

Little  Bellew,  who  was  a  tremendous  mirror 
of  fashion  and  chevalier  in  general,  looked  up 
curiously  at  his  tall  friend. 

'Why  don't  you  like  the  women.  Col,  when 
they're  so  fond  of  you?" 

'They  aren't,"  said  Colin  hotly,  "and  I  don't 
dislike  'em.  But,  Lord!  they  bore  me.  I  might 
be  doing  twenty  things  when  I  talk  nonsense  to 
one  of  'em  for  an  hour.  I  come  back  as  stupid 
as  an  owl,  and  besides  there's  heaps  of  things  bet- 
ter sport." 

The  truth  was  that,  while  among  men  he  was 
123 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

a  leader  and  at  his  ease,  among  women  his 
psychic  balance  was  so  oddly  upset  that  he  grew 
nervous  and  returned  unhappy.  The  boat  on  the 
beach,  ready  in  general  to  appear  at  the  slightest 
call,  would  delay  long  after  such  experiences, 
and  its  place  would  be  taken  by  some  woman's 
face  for  which  he  cared  not  a  straw.  For  the 
boat,  on  the  other  hand,  he  cared  a  very  great 
deal.  In  all  his  frank  wholesome  existence  there 
was  this  enchanting  background,  this  pleasure- 
garden  which  he  cherished  more  than  anything 
in  life.  He  had  come  of  late  to  look  at  it  with 
somewhat  different  eyes.  The  eager  desire  to 
search  behind  the  mist  was  ever  with  him,  but 
now  he  had  also  some  curiosity  about  the  de- 
tails of  the  picture.  As  he  pulled  out  to  the  Rim 
of  the  Mist  sounds  seemed  to  shape  themselves 
on  his  lips,  which  by-and-by  grew  into  actual 
words  in  his  memory.  He  wrote  them  down  in 
scraps,  and  after  some  sorting  they  seemed  to 
him  a  kind  of  Latin.  He  remembered  a  col- 
lege friend  of  his,  one  Medway,  now  reading  for 
the  Bar,  who  had  been  the  foremost  scholar  of  his 
acquaintance;  so  with  the  scrap  of  paper  in  his 
pocket  he  climbed  one  evening  to  Medway's 
rooms  in  the  Temple. 
The  man  read  the  words  curiously,  anji 
124 


THE  FAR  ISLANDS 

puzzled  for  a  bit.  "Whaf s  made  you  take  to 
Latin  comps  so  late  in  life,  Colin?  It's  baddish, 
you  know,  even  for  you.  I  thought  they'd  have 
licked  more  into  you  at  Eton." 

Colin  grinned  with  amusement.  *'I'll  tell  you 
about  it  later,"  he  said.  "Can  you  make  out  what 
it  means?" 

"It  seems  to  be  a  kind  of  dog-Latin  or  monk- 
ish Latin  or  something  of  the  sort,"  said  Med- 
way.  "It  reads  like  this:  'Soles  occidere  solenf 
(that's  cribbed  from  Catullus,  and  besides  it's 
the  regular  monkish  pun)  .  .  .  qua  .  .  .  then 
blandula  something.  Then  there's  a  lot  of  Choc- 
taw, and  then  ill(E  ins u Ice  dilectce  in  quas  fes tin- 
ant  somnia  animulce  gaudia.  That's  pret*ty  fair 
rot.  Hullo,  by  George!  here's  something  better 
— Insula  pomorum  insula  vitce.  That's  Geof- 
frey of  Monmouth." 

He  made  a  dive  to  a  bookcase  and  pulled  out 
a  battered  little  calf-bound  duodecimo.  "Here's 
all  about  your  Isle  of  Apple-trees.  Listen.  ^Sit- 
uate far  out  in  the  Western  ocean,  beyond  the 
Utmost  Islands,  beyond  even  the  little  Isle  of 
Sheep  where  the  cairns  of  dead  men  are,  lies  the 
Island  of  Apple-trees  where  the  heroes  and 
princes  of  the  nations  live  their  second  life.' " 
He  closed  the  book  and  put  it  back.    "It's  the  old 

125 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

ancient  story,  the  Greek  Hesperides,  the  British 
Avilion,  and  this  Apple-tree  Island  is  the  north- 
ern equivalent." 

Colin  sat  entranced,  his  memory  busy  with  a 
problem.  Could  he  distinguish  the  scents  of 
apple-trees  among  the  perfumes  of  the  Rim  of 
the  Mist.  For  the  moment  he  thought  he  could. 
He  was  roused  by  Medway's  voice  asking  the 
story  of  the  writing. 

"Oh,  it's  just  some  nonsense  that  was  running 
in  my  head,  so  I  wrote  it  down  to  see  what  it 
was." 

"But  you  must  have  been  reading.  A  new  ex- 
ercise for  you,  Colin!" 

"No,  I  wasn't  reading.  Look  here.  You  know 
the  sort  of  pictures  you  make  for  yourself  of 
places  you  like." 

"Rather!  Mine  is  a  Yorkshire  moor  with  a 
little  red  shooting-box  in  the  heart  of  it." 

"Well,  mine  is  different.  Mine  is  a  sort  of 
beach  with  a  sea  and  a  lot  of  islands  somewhere 
far  out.  It  is  a  jolly  place,  fresh,  you  know,  and 
blowing,  and  smells  good.  'Pon  my  word,  now 
I  think  of  it,  there's  always  been  a  scent  of  ap- 
ples." 

"Sort  of  cider-press?  Well,  I  must  be  ofif. 
You'd,  better  come  round  to  the  club  and  see  the 

126 


THE  FAR  ISLANDS 

telegrams  about  the  war.  You  should  be  keen 
about  it." 

One  evening,  a  week  later,  Medway  met  a 
friend  called  Tillotson  at  the  club,  and,  being 
lonely,  they  dined  together.  Tillotson  was  a 
man  of  some  note  in  science,  a  dabbler  in 
psychology,  an  amateur  historian,  a  ripe  gene- 
alogist. They  talked  of  politics  and  the  war, 
of  a  new  book,  of  Mrs.  Runnymede,  and  finally 
of  their  hobbies. 

'^I  am  writing  an  article,"  said  Tillotson. 
^^Craikes  asked  me  to  do  it  for  the  ^Monthly.' 
It's  on  a  nice  point  in  psychics.  I  call  it  ^The 
Transmission  of  Fallacies,'  but  I  do  not  mean  the 
logical  kind.  The  question  is.  Can  a  particular 
form  of  hallucination  run  in  a  family  for  genera- 
tions? The  proof  must,  of  course,  come  from 
my  genealogical  studies.  I  maintain  it  can.  I 
instance  the  Douglas-Ernotts,  not  dne  of  whom 
can  see  straight  with  the  left  eye.  That  is  one 
side.  In  another  class  of  examples  I  take  the 
Drapiers,  who  hate  salt  water  and  never  go  on 
board  ship  if  they  can  help  it.  Then  you  re- 
member the  Durwards?  Old  Lady  Balcrynie 
used  to  tell  me  that  no  one  of  the  lot  could  ever 
stand  the  sight  of  a  green  frock.  There's  a 
chance  for  the  romancer.    The  Manor-waters 

127 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 


have  the  same  madness,  only  their  colour  is  red. 

A  vague  remembrance  haunted  Medway's 
brain. 

^'I  know  a  man  w^ho  might  give  you  points 
from  his  own  case.  Did  you  ever  meet  a  chap 
Raden— Colin  Raden?" 

Tillotson  nodded.  "Long  chap — in  the 
Guards?  'Varsity  oar,  and  used  to  be  a  crack 
bowler?  No,  I  don't  know  him.  I  know  him 
well  by  sight,  and  I  should  like  to  meet  him 
tremendously — as  a  genealogist,  of  course." 

"Why?"  asked  Medway. 

"Why?  Because  the  man's  family  is  unique. 
You  never  hear  much  about  them  nowadays,  but 
away  up  in  that  north-west  corner  of  Scotland 
they  have  ruled  since  the  days  of  Noah.  Why, 
man,  they  were  aristocrats  when  our  Howards 
and  Nevilles  were  greengrocers.  I  wish  you 
would  get  this  Raden  to  meet  me  some  night." 

"I  am  afraid  there's  no  chance  of  it  just  at 
present,"  said  Medway,  taking  up  an  evening 
paper.  "I  see  that  his  regiment  has  gone  to  the 
front.  But  remind  me  when  he  comes  back,  and 
I'll  be  delighted." 


128 


^^ 


THE  FAR  ISLANDS 


III 


And  now  there  began  for  Colin  a  curious  di- 
vided life, — without,  a  constant  shifting  of  scene, 
days  of  heat  and  bustle  and  toil, — within,  a 
slow,  tantalising,  yet  exquisite  adventure.  The 
Rim  of  the  Mist  was  now  no  more  the  goal  of 
his  journeys,  but  the  starting-point.  Lying  there, 
amid  cool,  fragrant  sea-winds,  his  fanciful  ear 
was  subtly  alert  for  the  sounds  of  the  dim  land 
before  him.  Sleeping  and  waking  the  quest 
haunted  him.  As  he  flung  himself  on  his  bed  the 
kerosene-filled  air  would  change  to  an  ocean 
freshness,  the  old  boat  would  rock  beneath  him, 
and  with  clear  eye  and  a  boyish  hope  he  would 
be  waiting  and  watching.  And  then  suddenly 
he  would  be  back  on  shore,  Cuna  and  the 
Acharra  headland  shining  grey  in  the  morning 
light,  and  with  gritty  mouth  and  sand-filled  eyes 
he  would  awaken  to  the  heat  of  the  desert  camp. 
He  was  kept  busy,  for  his  good-humour  and 
energy  made  him  a  willing  slave,  and  he  was 
ready  enough  for  volunteer  work  when  others 
were  weak  with  heat  and  despair.  A  thirty-mile 
ride  left  him  untired;  more,  he  followed  the 
campaign  with  a  sharp  intelligence  and  found  a 
new  enthusiasm  for  his  profession.    Discomforts 

129 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

there  might  be,  but  the  days  were  happy;  and 
then — the  cool  land,  the  bright  land,  which  was 
his  for  the  thinking  of  it. 

Soon  they  gave  him  reconnoitring  work  to  do, 
and  his  wits  were  put  to  the  trial.  He  came  well 
out  of  the  thing,  and  earned  golden  praise  from 
the  silent  colonel  in  command.  He  enjoyed  it  as 
he  had  enjoyed  a  hard  race  on  the  river  or  a  good 
cricket  match,  and  when  his  worried  companions 
marvelled  at  his  zeal  he  stammered  and  grew 
uncomfortable. 

"How  the  deuce  do  you  keep  it  up,  Colin?" 
the  major  asked  him.  "I'm  an  old  hand  at  the 
job,  and  yet  IVe  got  a  temper  like  devilled  bones. 
You  seem  as  chirpy  as  if  you  were  going  out  to 
fish  a  chalk-stream  on  a  June  morning." 

"Well,  the  fact  is "  and  Colin  pulled  him- 
self up  short,  knowing  that  he  could  never  ex- 
plain. He  felt  miserably  that  he  had  an  un- 
fair advantage  of  the  others.  Poor  Bellew,  who 
groaned  and  swore  in  the  heat  at  his  side,  knew 
nothing  of  the  Rim  of  the  Mist.  It  was  really 
rough  luck  on  the  poor  beggars,  and  who  but 
himself  was  the  fortunate  man? 

As  the  days  passed  a  curious  thing  happened. 
He  found  fragments  of  the  Other  world  straying 
into  his  common  life.    The  barriers  of  the  two 

130 


THE  FAR  ISLANDS 

domains  were  falling,  and  more  than  once  he 
caught  himself  looking  at  a  steel-blue  sea  when 
his  eyes  should  have  found  a  mustard-coloured 
desert.  One  day,  on  a  reconnoitring  expedi- 
tion, they  stopped  for  a  little  on  a  hillock  above 
a  jungle  of  scrub,  and,  being  hot  and  tired, 
scanned  listlessly  the  endless  yellow  distances. 

''I  suppose  yon  hill  is  about  ten  miles  off," 
said  Bellew  with  dry  lips. 

Colin  looked  vaguely.    "I  should  say  five." 

"And  what's  that  below  it — the  black  patch? 
Stones  or  scrub?" 

Colin  was  in  a  day-dream.  "Why  do  you  call 
it  black?     It's  blue,  quite  blue." 

"Rot,"  said  the  other.     "It's  grey-black." 

"No,  it's  water  with  the  sun  shining  on  it.  It's 
blue,  but  just  at  the  edges  it's  very  near  sea- 
green." 

Bellew  rose  excitedly.  "Hullo,  Col,  you're 
seeing  the  mirage!  And  you  the  fittest  of  the  lot 
of  us!  -You've  got  the  sun  in  your  head,  old 
man!"     • 

"Mirage!"  Colin  cried  in  contempt.  He  was 
awake  now,  but  the  thought  of  confusing  his 
own  bright  western  sea  with  a  mirage  gave  him 
a  curious  pain.  For  a  moment  he  felt  the  gulf 
of  separation  between  his  two  worlds,  but  only 

131 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

for  a  moment.  As  the  party  remounted  he  gave 
his  fancies  the  rein,  and  ere  he  reached  camp 
he  had  felt  the  oars  in  his  hand  and  sniffed  the 
apple-tree  blossom  from  the  distant  beaches. 

The  major  came  to  him  after  supper. 

^^Bellew  told  me  you  were  a  bit  odd  to-day, 
Colin,"  he  said.  "I  expect  your  eyes  are  getting 
baddish.     Better  get  your  sand-spectacles  out." 

Colin  laughed.  "Thanks.  It's  awfully  good 
of  you  to  bother,  but  I  think  Bellew  took  me  up 
wrong.     I  never  was  fitter  in  my  life." 

By-and-by  the  turn  came  for  pride  to  be 
humbled.  A  low  desert  fever  took  him,  and 
though  he  went  through  the  day  as  usual,  it  was 
with  dreary  lassitude;  and  at  night,  with  hot 
hands  clasped  above  his  damp  hair,  he  found 
sleep  a  hard  goddess  to  conquer. 

It  was  the  normal  condition  of  the  others,  so 
he  had  small  cause  to  complain,  but  it  worked 
havoc  with  his  fancies.  He  had  never  been  ill 
since  his  childish  days,  and  this  little  fever  meant 
much  to  one  whose  nature  was  poised  on  a 
needle-point.  He  found  himself  confronted 
with  a  hard  bare  world,  with  the  gilt  rubbed 
from  its  corners.  The  Rim  of  the  Mist  seemed 
a  place  of  vague  horrors ;  when  he  reached  it  his 

132 


THE  FAR  ISLANDS 

soul  was  consumed  with  terror;  he  struggled  im- 
potently  to  advance;  behind  him  Cuna  and  the 
Acharra  coast  seemed  a  place  of  evil  dreams. 
Again,  as  in  his  old  fever,  he  was  fermented  with 
a  devouring  thirst,  but  the  sea  beside  him  was 
not  fresh,  but  brackish  as  a  rock-pool.  He 
yearned  for  the  apple-tree  beaches  in  front; 
there,  he  knew,  were  cold  springs  of  water;  the 
fresh  smell  of  it  was  blown  towards  him  in  his 
nightmare. 

But  as  the  days  passed  and  the  misery  for  all 
grew  more  intense,  an  odd  hope  began  to  rise 
in  his  mind.  It  could  not  last,  coolness  and 
health  were  waiting  near,  and  his  reason  for  the 
hope  came  from  the  odd  events  at  the  Rim  of 
Mist.  The  haze  was  clearing  from  the  fore- 
ground, the  surf-lined  coast  seemed  nearer,  and 
though  all  was  obscure  save  the  milk-white  sand 
and  the  foam,  yet  here  was  earnest  enough  for 
him.  Once  more  he  became  cheerful ;  weak  and 
light-headed  he  rode  out  again;  and  the  major, 
who  was  recovering  from  sunstroke,  found  envy 
take  the  place  of  pity  in  his  soul. 

The  hope  was  near  fulfilment.  One  evening 
wlien  the  heat  was  changing  into  the  cooler  twi- 
light, Colin  and  Bellew  were  sent  with  a  small 
picked  body  to  scour  the  foot-hills  above  the 

133 


IP 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHO 

river  in  case  of  a  flank  attack  during  the  night- 
march.  It  was  work  they  had  done  regularly  for 
weeks,  and  it  is  possible  that  precautions  were 
relaxed.  At  any  rate,  as  they  turned  a  corner 
of  hill,  in  a  sandy  pass  where  barren  rocks  looked 
down  on  more  barren  thorn  thickets,  a  couple  of 
rifle-shots  rang  out  from  the  scarp,  and  above 
them  appeared  a  line  of  dark  faces  and  white 
steel.  A  mere  handful,  taken  at  a  disadvantage, 
they  could  not  hope  to  disperse  numbers,  so 
Colin  gave  the  word  to  wheel  about  and  return. 
Again  shots  rang  out,  and  little  Bellew  had  only 
time  to  catch  at  his  friend's  arm  to  save  him  from 
falling  from  the  saddle. 

The  word  of  command  had  scarcely  left 
Colin's  mouth  when  a  sharp  pain  went  through 
his  chest,  and  his  breath  seemed  to  catch  and 
stop.  He  felt  as  in  a  condensed  moment  of  time 
the  heat,  the  desert  smell,  the  dust  in  his  eyes  and 
throat,  while  he  leaned  helplessly  forward  on 
his  horse's  mane.  Then  the  world  vanished  for 
him.  .  .  .  The  boat  was  rocking  under  him,  the 
oars  in  his  hand.  He  pulled  and  it  moved, 
straight,  arrow-like  towards  the  forbidden  shore. 
As  if  under  a  great  wind  the  mist  furled  up  and 
fled.  Scents  of  pines,  of  apple-trees,  of  great 
fields  of  thyme  and  heather,  hung  about  him; 

134 


THE  FAR  ISLANDS 

the  sound  of  wind  in  a  forest,  of  cool  waters  fall- 
ing in  showers,  of  old  moorland  music,  came 
thin  and  faint  with  an  exquisite  clearness.  A 
second  and  the  boat  was  among  the  surf,  its  gun- 
wale ringed  with  white  foam,  as  it  leaped  to  the 
still  waters  beyond.  Clear  and  deep  and  still  the 
water  lay,  and  then  the  white  beaches  shelved 
downward,  and  the  boat  grated  on  the  sand. 
He  turned,  every  limb  alert  with  a  strange  new 
life,  crying  out  words  which  had  shaped  them- 
selves on  his  lips  and  which  an  echo  seemed  to 
catch  and  answer.  There  was  the  green  forest 
before  him,  the  hills  of  peace,  the  cold  white 
waters.  With  a  passionate  joy  he  leaped  on 
the  beach,  his  arms  outstretched  to  this  new 
earth,  this  light  of  the  world,  this  old  desire  of 
the  heart — youth,  rapture,  immortality. 

Bellew  brought  the  body  back  to  camp,  him- 
self half-dead  with  fatigue  and  whimpering  like 
a  child.  He  almost  fell  from  his  horse,  and  when 
others  took  his  burden  from  him  and  laid  it 
reverently  in  his  tent,  he  stood  beside  it,  rubbing 
saad  and  sweat  from  his  poor  purblind  eyes,  his 
teeth  chattering  with  fever.  He  was  given  some- 
thing to  drink,  but  he  swallowed  barely  a  mouth- 
ful. 

135 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

*'It  was  some  d-d-damned  sharpshooter,"  he 
said.  ^'Right  through  the  breast,  and  he  never 
spoke  to  me  again.  My  poor  old  Col!  He  was 
the  best  chap  God  ever  created,  and  I  do-don't 
care  a  dash  what  becomes  of  me  now.  I  was  at 
school  with  him,  you  know,  you  men." 

"Was  he  killed  outright?"  asked  the  major 
hoarsely. 

"N-no.  He  lived  for  about  five  minutes.  But 
I  think  the  sun  had  got  into  his  head  or  he  was 
mad  with  pain,  for  he  d-d-didn't  know  where 
he  was.  He  kept  crying  out  about  the  smell  of 
pine-trees  and  heather  and  a  lot  of  pure  non- 
sense about  water." 

^'Et  dulces  remtniscitur  Argos/'  somebody 
quoted  mournfully,  as  they  went  out  to  the 
desert  evening. 


136 


Ill 

THE  WATCHER.  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 
I :  THE  HOUSE  OF  MORE 


I  HAVE  told  this  story  to  many  audiences  with 
diverse  results,  and  once  again  I  take  my 
reputation  in  my  hands  and  brave  the  perils.  To 
the  common  circle  of  my  friends  it  was  a  ro- 
mance for  a  winter's  fire,  and  I,  the  most  prosaic 
of  men,  was  credited  with  a  fancy.  Once  I  re- 
peated it  to  an  acquaintance,  who,  scenting 
mystery,  transcribed  it  in  a  note-book,  and,  with 
feigned  names,  it  figured  in  the  publications  of 
a  Learned  Society.  One  man  only  heard  me  with 
true  appreciation ;  but  he  was  a  wandering  spirit 
with  an  ear  open  to  marvels,  and  I  hesitate  to 
advance  his  security.  He  received  it  simply, 
saying  that  God  was  great,  and  I  cannot  improve 
upon  his  comment. 

A  chill  evening  in  the  early  October  of  the 
year    189-   found   me    driving   in    a    dog-cart 

137 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

through  the  belts  of  antique  woodland  which 
form  the  lowland  limits  of  the  hilly  parish  of 
More.  The  Highland  express,  which  brought 
me  from  the  north,  took  me  no  farther  than 
Perth.  Thence  it  had  been  a  slow  journey  in  a 
disjointed  local  train,  till  I  emerged  on  the  plat- 
form at  Morefoot,  with  a  bleak  prospect  of  pit- 
stalks,  coal-heaps,  certain  sour  corn-lands,  and 
far  to  the  west  a  line  of  moor  where  the  sun  was 
setting.  A  neat  groom  and  a  respectable  trap 
took  the  edge  off  my  discomfort,  and  soon  I  had 
forgotten  my  sacrifice  and  found  eyes  for  the 
darkening  landscape.  We  were  driving  through 
a  land  of  thick  woods,  cut  at  rare  intervals  by  old 
long-frequented  highways.  The  More,  which 
at  Morefoot  is  an  open  sewer,  became  a  sullen 
woodland  stream,  where  the  brown  leaves  of  the 
season  drifted.  At  times  we  would  pass  an 
ancient  lodge,  and  through  a  gap  in  the  trees 
would  come  a  glimpse  of  a  chipped  crow-step 
gable.  The  names  of  such  houses,  as  told  me  by 
my  companion,  were  all  famous.  This  one  had 
been  the  home  of  a  drunken  Jacobite  laird,  and 
a  kind  of  north-country  Medmenham.  Unholy 
revels  had  waked  the  old  halls,  and  the  Devil 
had  been  toasted  at  many  a  hell-fire  dinner.  The 
next  was  the  property  of  a  great  Scots  law  family, 

138 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

and  there  the  old  Lord  of  Session  who  built  the 
place,  in  his  frowsy  wig  and  carpet  slippers,  had 
laid  down  the  canons  of  Taste  for  his  day  and 
society.  The  whole  country  had  the  air  of  faded 
and  bygone  gentility.  The  mossy  roadside  walls 
had  stood  for  two  hundred  years,  the  few  way- 
side houses  were  toll-bars  or  defunct  hostelries. 
The  names,  too,  were  great — Scots  baronial  with 
a  smack  of  France — Chatelray  and  Reiverslaw, 
Black  Holm  and  Champertoun.  The  place  had 
a  cunning  charm,  mystery  dwelt  in  every  cranny, 
and  yet  it  did  not  please  me.  The  earth  smelt 
heavy  and  raw,  the  roads  were  red  underfoot, 
all  was  old,  sorrowful,  and  uncanny.  Compared 
with  the  fresh  Highland  glen  I  had  left,  where 
wind  and  sun  and  flying  showers  were  never  ab- 
sent, all  was  chilly  and  dull  and  dead.  Even 
when  the  sun  sent  a  shiver  of  crimson  over  the 
crests  of  certain  firs,  I  felt  no  delight  in  the 
prospect.  I  admitted  shamefacedly  to  myself 
that  I  was  in  a  very  bad  temper. 

I  had  been  staying  at  Glenaicill  with  the  Clan- 
roydens,  and  for  a  week  had  found  the  proper 
pleasure  in  life.  You  know  the  house  with  its 
old  rooms  and  gardens,  and  the  miles  of  heather 
which  defend  it  from  the  world.  The  shooting 
had  been  extraordinary  for  a  wild  place  far  on 

139 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

in  the  season,  for  there  are  few  partridges  and 
the  woodcock  are  notoriously  late.  I  had  done 
respectably  in  my  stalking,  more  than  respectably 
on  the  river,  and  creditably  on  the  moors. 
Moreover,  there  were  pleasant  people  in  the 
house — and  there  were  the  Clanroydens.  I  had 
had  a  hard  year's  work,  sustained  to  the  last 
moment  of  term,  and  a  fortnight  in  Norway  had 
been  disastrous.  It  was  therefore  with  real  com- 
fort that  I  had  settled  myself  down  for  another 
ten  days  in  Glenaicill,  when  all  my  plans  were 
shattered  by  Sybil's  letter.  Sybil  is  my  cousin 
and  my  very  good  friend,  and  in  old  days  when  I 
was  briefless  I  had  fallen  in  love  with  her  many 
times.  But  she  very  sensibly  chose  otherwise, 
and  married  a  man  Ladlaw — Robert  John  Lad- 
law — who  had  been  at  school  with  me.  He  was 
a  cheery,  good-humoured  fellow,  a  great  sports- 
man, a  justice  of  the  peace  and  deputy-lieuten- 
ant for  his  county,  and  something  of  an  antiquary 
in  a  mild  way.  He  had  a  box  in  Leicestershire 
to  which  he  went  in  the  hunting  season ;  but  from 
February  till  October  he  lived  in  his  moorland 
home.  The  place  was  called  the  House  of  More, 
and  I  had  shot  there  once  or  twice  in  recent 
years.    I  remembered  its  loneliness  and  its  com- 

140 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

fort,  the  charming  diffident  Sybil  and  Ladlaw's 
genial  welcome.  And  my  recollections  set  me 
puzzling  again  over  the  letter  which  that  morn- 
ing had  broken  into  my  comfort.  ^'You  prom- 
ised us  a  visit  this  autumn/^  Sybil  had  written, 
"and  I  wish  you  would  come  as  soon  as  you  can." 
So  far  common  politeness.  But  she  had  gone  on 
to  reveal  the  fact  that  Ladlaw  was  ill,  she  did 
not  know  how  exactly,  but  something,  she 
thought,  about  his  heart.  Then  she  had  signed 
herself  my  affectionate  cousin,  and  then  had 
come  a  short  violent  postscript,  in  which,  as  it 
weie,  the  fences  of  convention  had  been  laid 
low.  "For  Heaven's  sake  come  and  see  us!"  she 
scrawled  below.  "Bob  is  terribly  ill,  and  I  am 
crazy.  Come  at  once."  And  then  she  finished 
with  an  afterthought,  "Don't  bother  about  bring- 
ing doctors.    It  is  not  their  business." 

She  had  assumed  that  I  would  come,  and  duti- 
fully I  set  out.  I  could  not  regret  my  decision, 
but  I  took  leave  to  upbraid  my  luck.  The 
thought  of  Glenaicill  with  the  woodcock  begin- 
ning to  arrive,  and  the  Clanroydens  imploring 
me  to  stay,  saddened  my  journey  in  the  morning, 
and  the  murky,  coally  midland  country  of  the  af- 
ternoon completed  my  depression.  The  drive 
through  the  woodlands  of  More  failed  to  raise 

141 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

my  spirits.  I  was  anxious  about  Sybil  and  Lad- 
law,  and  the  accursed  country  had  always  given 
me  a  certain  eeriness  on  my  first  approaching  it. 
You  may  call  it  silly;  but  I  have  no  nerves,  and 
am  little  susceptible  to  vague  sentiment.  It  was 
sheer  physical  dislike  of  the  rich  deep  soil,  the 
woody  and  antique  smells,  the  melancholy  roads 
and  trees,  and  the  flavour  of  old  mystery.  I  am 
aggressively  healthy  and  wholly  Philistine.  I 
love  clear  outlines  and  strong  colours,  and  More, 
with  its  half-tints  and  hazy  distances,  depressed 
me  miserably.  Even  when  the  road  crept  uphill 
and  the  trees  ended,  I  found  nothing  to  hearten 
me  in  the  moorland  which  succeeded.  It  was 
genuine  moorland,  close  on  800  feet  above  the 
sea,  and  through  it  ran  this  old  grass-grown 
coach-road.  Low  hills  rose  to  the  left,  and  to 
the  right  after  some  miles  of  peat  flared  the 
chimneys  of  pits  and  oil-works.  Straight  in 
front  the  moor  ran  out  into  the  horizon,  and 
there  in  the  centre  was  the  last  dying  spark  of 
the  sun.  The  place  was  as  still  as  the  grave 
save  for  the  crunch  of  our  wheels  on  the  grassy 
road ;  but  the  flaring  lights  to  the  north  seemed 
to  endow  it  with  life.  -I  have  rarely  felt  so 
keenly  the  feeling  of  movement  in  the  inanimate 
world.    It  was  an  unquiet  place,  and  I  shivered 

142 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

nervously.  Little  gleams  of  loch  came  from  the 
hollows,  the  burns  were  brown  with  peat,  and 
every  now  and  then  there  rose  in  the  moor  jags 
of  sickening  red  stone.  I  remembered  that  Lad- 
law  had  talked  about  the  place  as  the  old 
Manann,  the  holy  land  of  the  ancient  races.  I 
had  paid  little  attention  at  the  time,  but  now  it 
struck  me  that  the  old  peoples  had  been  wise 
in  their  choice.  There  was  something  uncanny 
in  this  soil  and  air.  Framed  in  dank  mysterious 
woods,  and  a  country  of  coal  and  ironstone,  no 
great  distance,  too,  from  the  capital  city,  it  was 
a  sullen  relic  of  a  lost  barbarism.  Over  the  low 
hills  lay  a  green  pastoral  country  with  bright 
streams  and  valleys,  but  here  in  this  peaty  desert 
there  were  few  sheep  and  little  cultivation.  The 
House  of  More  was  the  only  dwelling,  and,  save 
for  the  ragged  village,  the  wilderness  was  given 
over  to  the  wild  things  of  the  hills.  The  shoot- 
ing was  good;  but  the  best  shooting  on  earth 
would  not  persuade  me  to  make  my  abode  in 
such  a  place.  Ladlaw  was  ill ;  well,  I  did  not 
wonder.  You  can  have  uplands  without  air, 
moors  that  are  not  health-giving,  and  a  country 
life  which  is  more  arduous  than  a  townsman's. 
I  shivered  again,  for  I  seemed  to  have  passed 

143 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

in  a  few  hours  from  the  open  noon  to  a  kind  of 
dank  twilight. 

We  passed  the  village  and  entered  the  lodge- 
gates.  Here  there  were  trees  again,  little  inno- 
cent new-planted  firs,  which  flourished  badly. 
Some  large  plane-trees  grew  near  the  house,  and 
there  were  thickets  upon  thickets^  of  the  ugly 
elder.  Even  in  the  half-darkness  I  could  see  that 
the  lawns  were  trini  and  the  flower-beds  re- 
spectable for  the  season ;  doubtless  Sybil  looked 
after  the  gardeners.  The  oblong  whitewashed 
house,  more  like  a  barrack  than  ever,  opened  sud- 
denly on  my  sight,  and  I  experienced  my  first 
sense  of  comfort  since  I  left  Glenaicill.  Here 
I  should  find  warmth  and  company,  and,  sure 
enough,  the  hall-door  was  wide  open,  and  in  the 
great  flood  of  light  which  poured  from  it  Sybil 
stood  to  welcome  me. 

She  ran  down  the  steps  as  I  dismounted,  and, 
with  a  word  to  the  groom,  caught  my  arm  and 
drew  me  into  the  shadow.  ^'Oh,  Henry,  it  was 
so  good  of  you  to  come.  You  mustn't  let  Bob 
think  that  you  know  he  is  ill.  We  don't  talk 
about  it.  I'll  tell  you  afterwards.  I  want  you 
to  cheer  him  up.  Now  we  must  go  in,  for  he  is 
in  the  hall  expecting  you." 

While  I  stood  blinking  in  the  light,  Ladlaw 
144* 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

came  forward  with  outstretched  hand  and  his 
usual  cheery  greeting.  I  looked  at  him  and  saw 
nothing  unnatural  in  his  appearance:  a  little 
drawn  at  the  lips,  perhaps,  and  heavy  below  the 
eyes,  but  still  fresh-coloured  and  healthy.  It  was 
Sybil  who  showed  change.  She  was  very  pale, 
her  pretty  eyes  were  deplorably  mournful,  and 
in  place  of  her  delightful  shyness  there  was  the 
self-confidence  and  composure  of  pain.  I  was 
honestly  shocked,  and  as  I  dressed  my  heart  was 
full  of  hard  thoughts  about  Ladlaw.  What 
could  his  illness  mean?  He  seemed  well  and 
cheerful,  while  Sybil  was  pale,  and  yet  it  was 
Sybil  who  had  written  the  postscript.  As  I 
warmed  myself  by  the  fire,  I  resolved  that  this 
particular  family  difficulty  was  my  proper  busi- 
ness. 


The  Ladlaws  were  waiting  for  me  in  the  draw- 
ing-room. I  noticed  something  new  and  strange 
in  Sybil's  demeanour.  She  looked  to  her  hus- 
band with  a  motherly  protective  air,  while  Lad- 
law,  who  had  been  the  extreme  of  masculine  in- 
dependence, seemed  to  cling  to  his  wife  with  a 
curious  appealing  fidelity.  In  conversation  he 
did  little  more  than  echo  her  words.    Till  din- 

145 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

ner  was  announced  he  spoke  of  the  weather,  the 
shooting,  and  Mabel  Clanroyden.  Then  he  did 
a  queer  thing,  for,  when  I  was  about  to  offer  my 
arm  to  Sybil,  he  forestalled  me,  and,  clutching 
her  right  arm  with  his  left  hand,  led  the  way  to 
the  dining-room,  leaving  me  to  follow  in  some 
bewilderment. 

I  have  rarely  taken  part  in  a  more  dismal 
meal.  The  House  of  More  has  a  pretty 
Georgian  panelling  through  most  of  the  rooms; 
but  in  the  dining-room  the  walls  are  level,  and 
painted  a  dull  stone  colour.  Abraham  offered 
up  Isaac  in  a  ghastly  picture  in  front  of  me. 
Some  photographs  of  the  Quorn  hung  over  the 
mantelpiece,  and  five  or  six  drab  ancestors  filled 
up  the  remaining  space.  But  one  thing  was  new 
and  startling.  A  great  marble  bust,  a  genuine 
antique,  frowned  on  me  from  a  pedestal.  The 
head  was  in  the  late  Roman  style,  clearly  of  some 
emperor,  and  in  its  commonplace  environment 
the  great  brows,  the  massive  neck,  and  the 
mysterious,  solemn  lips  had  a  surprising  effect. 
I  nodded  towards  the  thing,  and  asked  what  it 
represented. 

Ladlaw  grunted  something  which  I  took  for 
"Justinian,"  but  he  never  raised  his  eyes  from 
his  plate.    By  accident  I  caught  Sybil's  glance. 

146 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

She  looked  towards  the  bust,  and  laid  a  finger 
on  her  lips. 

The  meal  grew  more  doleful  as  it  advanced. 
Sybil  scarcely  touched  a  dish,  but  her  husband 
ate  ravenously  of  everything.  He  was  a  strong, 
thick-set  man,  with  a  square,  kindly  face,  burned 
brown  by  the  sun.  Now  he  seemed  to  have  sud- 
denly coarsened.  He  gobbled  with  undignified 
haste,  and  his  eye  was  extraordinarily  vacant.  A 
question  made  him  start,  and  he  would  turn  on 
me  a  face  so  strange  and  inert  that  I  repented  the 
interruption. 

I  asked  him  about  the  autumn's  sport,  and  he 
collected  his  wits  with  difficulty.  He  thought  it 
had  been  good  on  the  whole,  but  he  had  shot 
badly.  He  had  not  been  quite  so  fit  as  usual. 
No,  he  had  had  nobody  staying  with  him — Sybil 
had  wanted  to  be  alone.  He  was  afraid  the 
moor  might  have  been  under-shot,  but  he  would 
make  a  big  day  with  keepers  and  farmers  before 
the  winter. 

^'Bob  has  done  pretty  well,"  Sybil  said.  "He 
hasn't  been  out  often,  for  the  weather  has  been 
very  bad  here.  You  can  have  no  idea,  Henry, 
how  horrible  this  moorland  place  of  ours  can  be 
when  it  tries.  It  is  one  great  sponge  sometimes, 
with  ugly  red  burns,  and  mud  to  the  ankles." 

147 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

*^I  don't  think  it's  healthy,"  said  I. 

Ladlaw  lifted  his  face.  "Nor  do  I:  I  think 
it's  intolerable;  but  I  am  so  busy,  I  can't  get 
away." 

Once  again  I  caught  Sybil's  warning  eye  as  I 
was  about  to  question  him  on  his  business. 

Clearly  the  man's  brain  had  received  a  shock, 
and  he  was  beginning  to  suffer  from  hallucina- 
tions. This  could  be  the  only  explanation,  for 
he  had  always  led  a  temperate  life.  The  dis- 
trait  wandering  manner  was  the  only  sign  of  his 
malady,  for  otherwise  he  seemed  normal  and 
mediocre  as  ever.  My  heart  grieved  for  Sybil, 
alone  with  him  in  this  wilderness. 

Then  he  broke  the  silence.  He  lifted  his  head 
and  looked  nervously  around  till  his  eye  fell  on 
the  Roman  bust. 

"Do  you  know  that  this  countryside  is  the  old 
Manann?"  he  said. 

It  was  an  odd  turn  to  the  conversation,  but  I 
was  glad  of  a  sign  of  intelligence.  I  answered 
that  I  had  heard  so. 

"It's  a  queer  name,"  lie  said  oracularly;  "but 
the  thing  it  stood  for  was  queerer.  Manann, 
Manaw,"  he  repeated,  rolling  the  words  on  his 
tongue.  As  he  spoke,  he  glanced  sharply,  and,  as 
it  seemed  to  me,  fearfully,  at  his  left  side. 

148 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

The  movement  of  his  body  made  his  napkin 
slip  from  his  left  knee  and  fall  on  the  floor. 
It  leaned  against  his  leg,  and  he  started  from  its 
touch  as  if  he  had  been  stung  by  a  snake.  I  have 
never  seen  a  more  sheer  and  transparent  terror 
on  a  man's  face.  He. got  to  his  feet,  his  strong 
frame  shaking  like  a  rush.  Sybil  ran  round  to 
his  side,  picked  up  the  napkin,  and  flung  it  on 
a  sideboard.  Then  she  stroked  his  hair  as  one 
would  stroke  a  frightened  horse.  She  called 
him  by  his  old  boy's  name  of  Robin,  and  at  her 
touch  and  voice  he  became  quiet.  But  the  par- 
ticular course  then  in  progress  was  removed  un- 
tasted. 

In  a  few  minutes  he  seemed  to  have  forgotten 
his  behaviour,  for  he  took  up  the  former  conver- 
sation.   For  a  time  he  spoke  well  and  briskly. 

^'You  lawyers,"  he  said,  "understand  only  the 
dry  framework  of  the  past.  You  cannot  con- 
ceive the  rapture,  which  only  the  antiquary  can 
feel,  of  constructing  in  every  detail  an  old  cul- 
ture. Take  this  Manann.  If  I  could  explore 
the  secret  of  these  moors,  I  would  write  the 
world's  greatest  book.  I  would  write  of  that  pre- 
historic life  when  man  was  knit  close  to  nature. 
I  would  describe  the  people  who  were  brothers 
of  the  red  earth  and  the  red  rock  and  the  red 

149 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

streams  of  the  hills.  Oh,  it  would  be  horrible, 
but  superb,  tremendous!  It  would  be  more  than 
a  piece  of  history;  it  would  be  a  new  gospel,  a 
new  theory  of  life.  It  would  kill  materialism 
once  and  for  all.  Why,  man,  all  the  poets  who 
have  deified  and  personified  nature  would  not 
do  an  eighth  part  of  my  work.  I  would  show  you 
the  unknown,  the  hideous,  shrieking  mystery  at 
the  back  of  this  simple  nature.  Men  would  see 
the  profundity  of  the  old  crude  faiths  which  they 
affect  to  despise.  I  would  make  a  picture  of  our 
shaggy,  sombre-eyed  forefather,  who  heard 
strange  things  in  the  hill-silences.  I  would  show 
him  brutal  and  terror-stricken,  but  wise,  wise, 
God  alone  knows  how  wise !  The  Romans  knew 
it,  and  they  learned  what  they  could  from  him, 
but  he  did  not  tell  them  much.  But  we  have 
some  of  his  blood  in  us,  and  we  may  go  deeper. 
Manann!  A  queer  land  nowadays!  I  sometimes 
love  it  and  sometimes  hate  it,  but  I  always  fear 
it.    It  is  like  that  statue,  inscrutable." 

I  would  have  told  him  that  he  was  talking 
mystical  nonsense;  but  I  had  looked  towards  the 
bust,  and  my  rudeness  was  checked  on  my  lips. 
The  moor  might  be  a  common  piece  of  ugly 
Waste  land,  but  the  statue  was  inscrutable — of 
that  there  was  no  doubt.     I  hate  your  cruel, 

150 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

heavy-mouthed  Roman  busts;  to  me  they  have 
none  of  the  beauty  of  life,  and  little  of  the  in- 
terest of  art.  But  my  eyes  were  fastened  on  this 
as  they  had  never  before  looked  on  marble.  The 
oppression  of  the  heavy  woodlands,  the  mystery 
of  the  silent  moor,  seemed  to  be  caught  and  held 
in  this  face.  It  was  the  intangible  mystery  of 
culture  on  the  verge  of  savagery,  a  cruel,  lustful 
wisdom,  and  yet  a  kind  of  bitter  austerity  which 
laughed  at  the  game  of  life  and  stood  aloof. 
There  was  no  weakness  in  the  heavy-veined 
brow  and  slumbrous  eyelids.  It  was  the  face  of 
one  who  had  conquered  the  world  and  found  it 
dust  and  ashes,  one  who  had  eaten  of  the  tree 
of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil  and  scorned 
human  wisdom.  And  at  the  same  time  it  was 
the  face  of  one  who  knew  uncanny  things,  a 
man  who  was  the  intimate  of  the  half-world  and 
the  dim  background  of  life.  Why  on  earth  I 
should  connect  the  Roman  grandee  ^  with  the 

^  I  have  identified  the  bust,  which,  when  seen  under  other 
circumstances,  had  little  power  to  affect  me.  It  was  a  copy 
of  the  head  of  Justinian  in  the  Tesci  Museum  at  Venice^ 
and  several  duplicates  exist,  dating  apparently  from  the 
seventh  century,  and  showing  traces  of  Byzantine  decadence 
in  the  scrollwork  on  the  hair.     It  is  engraved  in  M.  Dela- 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

moorland  parish  of  More,  I  cannot  say;  but  the 
fact  remains,  that  there  was  that  in  the  face 
which  I  knew  had  haunted  me  through  the  wood- 
lands and  bogs  of  the  place,  a  sleepless,  dismal, 
incoherent  melancholy. 

"I  bought  that  at  Colenzo's,"  Ladlaw  said, 
^'because  it  took  my  fancy.  It  matches  well  with 
this  place." 

I  thought  it  matched  very  ill  with  his  drab 
walls  and  Quorn  photographs,  but  I  held  my 
peace. 

"Do  you  know  who  it  is?"  he  asked.  "It  is 
the  head  of  the  greatest  man  the  world  has  ever 
seen.  You  are  a  lawyer  and  know  your  Jus- 
tinian." 

The  Pandects  are  scarcely  part  of  the  daily 
work  of  a  common-law  barrister.  I  had  not 
looked  into  them  since  I  left  college. 

"I  know  that  he  married  an  actress,"  I  said, 
"and  was  a  sort  of  all-round  genius.  He  made 
law  and  fought  battles  and  had  rows  with  the 
Church.  A  curious  man!  And  wasn't  there 
some  story  about  his  selling  his  soul  to  the  Devil 
and  getting  law  in  exchange?  Rather  a  poor 
bargain!" 

crolx's  'Byzantium/  and,  I  think,  in  Windscheid  s  'Pandek' 
tenlehrbuch.' 

1J2 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

I  chattered  away  sillily  enough,  to  dispel  the 
gloom  of  that  dinner-table.  The  result  of  my 
words  was  unhappy.  Ladlaw  gasped,  and 
caught  at  his  left  side  as  if  in  pain.  Sybil,  with 
tragic  eyes,  had  been  making  signs  to  me  to  hold 
my  peace.  Now  she  ran  round  to  her  husband's 
side  and  comforted  him  like  a  child.  As  she 
passed  me  she  managed  to  whisper  in  my  ear  to 
talk  to  her  only  and  let  her  husband  alone. 

For  the  rest  of  dinner  I  obeyed  my  orders  tp 
the  letter.  Ladlaw  ate  his  food  in  gloomy  si- 
lence, while  I  spoke  to  Sybil  of  our  relatives  and 
friends,  of  London,  Glenaicill,  and  any  random 
subject.  The  poor  girl  was  dismally  forgetful, 
and  her  eye  would  wander  to  her  husband  with 
wifely  anxiety.  I  remember  being  suddenly 
overcome  by  the  comic  aspect  of  it  all.  Here 
were  we  three  fools  alone  in  this  dank  upland, 
one  of  us  sick  and  nervous,  talking  out-of-the- 
way  nonsense  about  Manann  and  Justinian,  gob- 
bling his  food  and  getting  scared  at  his  napkin, 
another  gravely  anxious,  and  myself  at  my  wits' 
end  for  a  solution.  It  was  a  Mad  Tea-party  with 
a  vengeance,  Sybil  the  melancholy  little  Dor- 
mouse, and  Ladlaw  the  incomprehensible  Hat- 
ter. I  laughed  aloud,  but  checked  myself  when 
I  caught  my  cousin's  eye.    It  was  really  no  case 

153 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

for  finding  humour.    Ladlaw  was  very  ill,  and 
Sybil's  face  was  getting  deplorably  thin. 

I  welcomed  the  end  of  that  meal  with  unman- 
nerly joy,  for  I  wanted  to  speak  seriously  with 
my  host.  Sybil  told  the  butler  to  have  the  lamps 
lit  in  the  library.  Then  she  leaned  over  to  me 
and  spoke  low  and  rapidly:  "I  want  you  to  talk 
with  Bob.  I'm  sure  you  can  do  him  good. 
You'll  have  to  be  very  patient  with  him  and 
very  gentle.  Oh  please  try  and  find  out  what 
is  wrong  with  him.  He  won't  tell  me,  and  I 
can  only  guess." 

The  butler  returned  with  word  that  the  library 
was  ready  to  receive  us,  and  Sybil  rose  to  go. 
Ladlaw  half  rose,  protesting,  making  the  most 
curious,  feeble  clutches  at  his  side.  His  wife 
quieted  him.  "Henry  will  look  after  you,  dear," 
she  said.  "You  are  going  into  the  library  to 
smoke."  Then  she  slipped  from  the  room,  and 
we  were  left  alone. 

He  caught  my  arm  fiercely  with  his  left  hand, 
and  his  grip  nearly  made  me  cry  out.  As  we 
walked  down  the  hall  I  could  feel  his  arm 
twitching  from  the  elbow  to  the  shoulder. 
Clearly  he  was  in  pain,  and  I  set  it  down  to  some 
form  of  cardiac  affection,  which  might  possibl 
issue  in  paralysis. 

154 


4 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

I  settled  him  in  the  biggest  arm-chair,  and 
took  one  of  his  cigars.  The  library  is  the  pleas- 
antest  room  in  the  house,  and  at  night,  when  a 
peat-fire  burned  on  the  old  hearth  and  the  great 
red  curtains  were  drawn,  it  used  to  be  the  place 
for  comfort  and  good  talk.  Now  I  noticed 
changes.  Ladlaw's  book-shelves  had  been  filled 
with  the  proceedings  of  antiquarian  societies  and 
many  light-hearted  works  in  belles-lettres.  But 
now  the  Badminton  Library  had  been  cleared 
out  of  a  shelf  where  it  stood  most  convenient 
to  the  hand,  and  its  place  taken  by  an  old  Leyden 
reprint  of  Justinian.  There  were  books  on  By- 
zantine subjects  of  which  I  never  dreamed  he 
had  heard  the  names.  There  were  volumes  of 
history  and  speculation,  all  of  a  slightly  bizarre 
kind;  and  to  crown  everything,  there  were 
several  bulky  medical  works  with  gaudily 
coloured  plates.  The  old  atmosphere  of  sport 
and  travel  had  gone  from  the  room,  with  the 
medley  of  rods,  whips,  and  gun-cases  which  used 
to  cumber  the  tables.  Now  the  place  was  mod- 
erately tidy  and  slightly  learned — and  I  did  not 
like  it 

Ladlaw  refused  to  smoke,  and  sat  for  a  little 
while  in  silence.  Then  of  his  own  accord  he 
broke  the  tension, — 

155 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

^'It  was  devilish  good  of  you  to  come,  Harry. 
This  is  a  lonely  place  for  a  man  who  is  a  bit 
seedy." 

"I  thought  you  might  be  alone,"  I  said,  "so 
I  looked  you  up  on  my  way  down  from  Glen- 
aicill.    I'm  sorry  to  find  you  looking  ill." 

"Do  you  notice  it?"  he  asked  sharply. 

"It's  tolerably  patent,"  I  said.  "Have  you 
seen  a  doctor?" 

He  said  something  uncomplimentary  about 
doctors,  and  kept  looking  at  me  with  his  curious 
dull  eyes. 

I  remarked  the  strange  posture  in  which  he 
sat — his  head  screwed  round  to  his  right 
shoulder,  and  his  whole  body  a  protest  against 
something  at  his  left  hand. 

"It  looks  like  your  heart,"  I  said.  "You  seem 
to  have  pains  in  your  left  side." 

Again  a  spasm  of  fear.  I  went  over  to  him 
and  stood  at  the  back  of  his  chair. 

"Now,  for  goodness'  sake,  my  dear  fellow,  tell 
me  what  is  wrong?  You're  scaring  Sybil  to 
death.  It's  lonely  work  for  the  poor  girl,  and  I 
wish  you  would  let  me  help  you." 

He  was  lying  back  in  his  chair  now,  with  his 
eyes  half  shut,  and  shivering  like  a  frightened 
colt.    The  extraordinary  change  in  one  who  had 

156 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

been  the  strongest  of  the  strong  kept  me  from 
realising  its  gravity.  I  put  a  hand  on  his 
shoulder,  but  he  flung  it  off. 

^Tor  God's  sake  sit  down!"  he  said  hoarsely. 
"I'm  going  to  tell  you;  but  I'll  never  make  you 
understand." 

I  sat  down  promptly  opposite  him. 

*'It's  the  Devil,"  he  said  very  solemnly.  I  am 
afraid  that  I  was  rude  enough  to  laugh.  He 
took  no  notice,  but  sat  with  the  same  tense,  mis- 
erable air,  staring  over  my  head. 

''Right,"  said  I.  "Then  it  is  the  Devil.  It's 
a  new  complaint,  so  it's  as  well  I  did  not  bring 
a  doctor.  How  does  it  affect  you?"  He  made 
the  old  impotent  clutch  at  the  air  with  his  left 
hand.  I  had  the  sense  to  become  grave  at  once. 
Clearly  this  was  some  mental  affection,  some  hal- 
lucination born  of  physical  pain. 

Then  he  began  to  talk  in  a  low  voice,  very 
irapidly,  with  his  head  bent  forward  like  a  hunted 
animal's.  I  am  not  going  to  set  down  what  he 
told  me  in  his  own  words,  for  they  were  inco- 
herent often,  and  there  was  much  repetition. 
But  I  am  going  to  write  the  gist  of  the  odd  story 
which  took  my  sleep  away  on  that  autumn  night, 
with  such  explanations  and  additions  as  I  think 
needful.    The    fire  died  down,  the  wind  arose, 

157 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

the  hour  grew  late,  and  still  he  went  on  in  his 

mumbling  recitative.    I  forgot  to  smoke,  forgot 

my  comfort, — everything  but  the  odd  figure  of 

my  friend  and  Jiis  inconceivable  romance.    And 

the  night  before  I  had  been  in  cheerful  Glen- 

aicill! 

•  •••••• 

He  had  returned  to  the  House  of  More,  he 
said,  in  the  latter  part  of  May,  and  shortly  after 
he  fell  ill.  It  was  a  trifling  sickness — influenza 
or  something — but  he  had  never  quite  recovered. 
The  rainy  weather  of  June  depressed  him,  and 
the  extreme  heat  of  July  made  him  listless  and 
weary.  A  kind  of  insistent  sleepiness  hung  over 
him,  and  he  suffered  much  from  nightmare. 
Towards  the  end  of  July  his  former  health  re- 
turned; but  he  was  haunted  with  a  curious  op- 
pression. He  seemed  to  himself  to  have  lost  the 
art  of  being  alone.  There  was  a  perpetual  sound 
in  his  left  ear,  a  kind  of  moving  and  rustling  at 
his  left  side,  which  never  left  him  by  night  or 
day.  In  addition  he  had  become  the  prey  of 
nerves  and  an  insensate  dread  of  the  unknown. 

Ladlaw,  as  I  have  explained,  was  a  common- 
place man,  with  fair  talents,  a  mediocre  culture, 
honest  instincts,  and  the  beliefs  and  incredulities 
of  his  class.    On  abstract  grounds  I  should  have 

158 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

declared  him  an  unlikely  man  to  be  the  victim 
of  a  hallucination.  He  had  a  kind  of  dull, 
bourgeois  rationalism,  which  used  to  find  reasons 
for  all  things  in  heaven  and  earth.  At  first  he 
controlled  his  dread  with  proverbs.  He  told 
himself  it  was  the  sequel  of  his  illness,  or  the 
light-headedness  of  summer  heat  on  the  moors. 
But  it  soon  outgrew  his  comfort.  It  became  a  liv- 
ing second  presence,  an  alter  ego  which  dogged 
his  footsteps.  He  became  acutely  afraid  of  it. 
He  dared  not  be  alone  for  a  moment,  and  clung 
to  Sybil's  company  despairingly.  She  went  off 
for  a  week's  visit  in  the  beginning  of  August,  and 
he  endured  for  seven  days  the  tortures  of  the  lost. 
His  malady  advanced  upon  him  with  swift  steps. 
The  presence  became  more  real  daily.  In  the 
early  dawning,  in  the  twilight,  and  in  the  first 
hoars  of  the  morning  it  seemed  at  times  to  take 
a  visible  bodily  form.  A  kind  of  amorphous 
featureless  shadow  would  run  from  his  side  into 
the  darkness,  and  he  would  sit  palsied  with  ter- 
ror. Sometimes  in  lonely  places  his  footsteps 
sounded  double,  and  something  would  brush  el- 
bows with  him.  Human  society  alone  exorcised 
it.  With  Sybil  at  his  side  he  was  happy;  but  as 
soon  as  she  left  him  the  thing  came  slinking 
back  from  the  unknown  to  watch  by  him.    Com- 

159 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

pany  might  have  saved  him,  but  joined  to  his  af- 
fliction was  a  crazy  dread  of  his  fellows.  He 
would  not  leave  his  moorland  home,  but  must 
bear  his  burden  alone  among  the  wild  streams 
and  mosses  of  that  dismal  place. 

The  Twelfth  came,  and  he  shot  wretchedly, 
for  his  nerve  had  gone  to  pieces.  He  stood  ex- 
haustion badly,  and  became  a  dweller  about  the 
doors.  But  with  this  bodily  inertness  came  an 
extraordinary  intellectual  revival.  He  read 
widely  in  a  blundering  way,  and  he  speculated 
unceasingly.  It  was  characteristic  of  the  man 
that,  as  soon  as  he  left  the  paths  of  the  prosaic, 
he  should  seek  his  supernatural  in  a  very  con- 
crete form.  He  assumed  that  he  was  haunted  by 
the  Devil — the  visible,  personal  Devil  in  whom 
our  fathers  believed.  He  waited  hourly  for  the 
shape  at  his  side  to  speak,  but  no  words  came. 
The  Accuser  of  the  Brethren  in  all  but  tangible 
form  was  his  ever-present  companion.  He  felt, 
he  declared,  the  spirit  of  old  evil  entering  subtly 
into  his  blood.  He  sold  his  soul  many  times  over, 
and  yet  there  was  no  possibility  of  resistance. 
It  was  a  Visitation  more  undeserved  than  Job's, 
and  a  thousandfold  more  awful. 

For  a  week  or  more  he  was  tortured  with  a 
kind  of  religious  mania.     When  a  man  of  a 

1 60 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

healthy,  secular  mind  finds  himself  adrift  on  the 
terrible  ocean  of  religious  troubles,  he  is  pe- 
culiarly helpless,  for  he  has  not  the  most  rudi- 
mentary knowledge  of  the  winds  and  tides.  It 
was  useless  to  call  up  his  old  carelessness;  he  had 
suddenly  dropped  into  a  new  world  where  old 
proverbs  did  not  apply.  And  all  the  while, 
mind  you,  there  was  the  shrieking  terror  of  it — 
an  intellect  all  alive  to  the  torture  and  the  most 
unceasing  physical  fear.  For  a  little  he  was  on 
the  near  edge  of  idiocy. 

Then  by  accident  it  took  a  new  form.  While 
sitting  with  Sybil  one  day  in  the  library,  he 
began  listlessly  to  turn  over  the  leaves  of  an  old 
book.  He  read  a  few  pages,  and  found  the  hint 
of  a  story  like  his  own.  It  was  some  French  life 
of  Justinian,  one  of  the  unscholarly  productions 
of  last  century,  made  up  of  stories  from  Pro- 
copius  and  tags  of  Roman  law.  Here  was  his 
own  case  written  down  in  black  and  white;  and 
the  man  had  been  a  king  of  kings !  This  was  a 
new  comfort,  and  for  a  little — strange  though  it 
miy  seem — he  took  a  sort  of  pride  ih  his  af- 
fliction. He  worshipped  the  great  emperor  and 
read  every  scrap  he  could  find  on  him,  not  ex- 
cepting the  Pandects  and  the  Digest.  He  sent 
for  the  bust  in  the  dining-room,  paying  a  fabu- 

i6i 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

lous  price.  Then  he  settled  himself  to  study  his 
imperial  prototype,  and  the  study  became  an 
idolatry.  As  I  have  said,  Ladlaw  was  a  man  of 
ordinary  talents  and  certainly  of  meagre  im- 
aginative power.  And  yet  from  the  lies  of  the 
^Secret  History'  and  the  crudities  of  German 
legalists  he  had  constructed  a  marvellous  por- 
trait of  a  man.  Sitting  there  in  the  half-lit  room, 
he  drew  the  picture, — the  quiet,  cold  king  with 
his  inheritance  of  Dacian  mysticism,  holding  the 
great  world  in  fee,  giving  it  law  and  religion, 
fighting  its  wars,  building  its  churches,  and  yet 
all  the  while  intent  upon  his  own  private  work 
of  making  his  peace  with  his  soul.  The  church- 
man and  warrior  whom  all  the  world  wor- 
shipped, and  yet  one  going  through  life  with 
his  lip  quivering,  the  Watcher  by  the  Threshold 
ever  at  his  left  side.  Sometimes  at  night  in  the 
great  Brazen  Palace,  warders  heard  the  emperor 
walking  in  the  dark  corridors,  alone  and  yet  not 
alone;  for  once,  when  a  servant  entered  with  a 
lamp,  he  saw  his  master  with  a  face  as  of  an- 
other world,  and  something  beside  him  which 
had  no  face  or  shape,  but  which  he  knew  to  be 
that  hoary  Evil  which  is  older  than  the  stars. 
Crazy  nonsense!  I  had  to  rub  my  eyes  to  as- 
sure myself  that  I  was  not  sleeping.    No !   There 

162 


d 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

was  my  friend  with  his  suffering  face,  and  it 
was  the  library  of  More. 

And  then  he  spoke  of  Theodora — actress,  har- 
lot, devote,  empress.  For  him  the  lady  was  but 
another  part  of  the  uttermost  horror,  a  form  of 
the  shapeless  thing  at  his  side.  I  felt  myself 
falling  under  the  fascination.  I  have  no  nerves 
and  little  imagination,  but  in  a  flash  I  seemed  to 
realise  something  of  that  awful  featureless  face,_ 
crouching  ever  at  a  man's  hand,  till  darkness 
and  loneliness  comes  and  it  rises  to  its  mastery. 
I  shivered  as  I  looked  at  the  man  in  the  chair 
before  me.  Those  dull  eyes  of  his  were  look- 
ing upon  things  I  could  not  see,  and  I  saw  their 
terror.  I  realised  that  it  was  grim  earnest  for 
him.  Nonsense  or  no,  some  devilish  fancy  had 
usurped  the  place  of  sanity,  and  he  was  being 
slowly  broken  upon  the  wheel.  And  then,  when 
his  left  hand  twitched,  I  almost  cried  out.  I  had 
thought  it  comic  before ;  now  it  seemed  the  last 
proof  of  tragedy. 

He  stopped,  and  I  got  up  with  loose  knees  and 
went  to  the  window.  Better  the  black  night  than 
the  intangible  horror  within.  I  flung  up  the 
sash  and  looked  out  across  the  moor.  There  was 
no  light,  nothing  but  an  inky  darkness  and  the 

163 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

uncanny  rustle  of  elder-bushes.  The  sound 
chilled  me,  and  I  closed  the  window. 

"The  land  is  the  old  Manann,"  Ladlaw  was 
saying.  "We  are  beyond  the  pale  here.  Do  you 
hear  the  wind?" 

I  forced  myself  back  into  sanity  and  looked 
at  rhy  watch.  It  was  nearly  one  o'clock. 

"What  ghastly  idiots  we  are!"  I  said.  "I 
am  off  to  bed." 

Ladlaw  looked  at  me  helplessly.  "For  God's 
sake  don't  leave  me  alone!"  he  moaned.  "Get 
Sybil." 

We  went  together  back  to  the  hall,  while  he 
kept  the  same  feverish  grip  on  my  arm.  Some 
one  was  sleeping  in  a  chair  by  the  hall-fire,  and 
to  my  distress  I  recognised  my  hostess.  The  poor 
child  must  have  been  sadly  wearied.  She  came 
forward  with  her  anxious  face. 

"I'm  afraid  Bob  has  kept  you  very  late, 
Henry,"  she  said.  "I  hope  you  will  sleep  well. 
Breakfast  at  nine,  you  know."  And  then  I  left 
them. 

Over  my  bed  there  was  a  little  picture,  a  re- 
production of  some  Italian  work  of  Christ  and 
the  Demoniac.  Some  impulse  made  me  hold 
my  candle  up  to  it.  The  madman's  face  was 
torn  with  passion  and  suffering,  and  his  eye  had 

164 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

the  pained  furtive  look  which  I  had  come  to 
know.  And  by  his  left  side  there  was  a  dim 
shape  crouching. 

I  got  into  bed  hastily,  but  not  to  sleep.  I  felt 
that  my  reason  must  be  going.  I  had  been  pitch- 
forked from  our  clear  and  cheerful  modern  life 
into  the  mists  of  old  superstition.  Old  tragic 
stories  of  my  Calvinist  upbringing  returned  to 
haunt  me.  The  man  dwelt  in  by  a  devil  was  no 
new  fancy;  but  I  believed  that  Science  had 
docketed  and  analysed  and  explained  the  Devil 
out  of  the  world.  I  remembered  my  dabblings 
in  the  occult  before  I  settled  down  to  law — the 
story  of  Donisarius,  the  monk  of  Padua,  the  un- 
holy legend  of  the  Face  of  Proserpina,  the  tales 
of  succubi  and  incubi,  the  Leannain  Sith  and  the 
Hidden  Presence.  But  here  was  something 
stranger  still.  I  had  stumbled  upon  that  very 
possession  which  fifteen  hundred  years  ago  had 
made  the  monks  of  New  Rome  tremble  and  cross 
themselves.  Some  devilish  occult  force,  linger- 
ing through  the  ages,  had  come  to  life  after  a 
long  sleep.  God  knows  what  earthly  connec- 
tion there  was  between  the  splendid  Emperor  of 
the  World  and  my  prosaic  friend,  or  between 
tlie  glittering  shores  of  the  Bosphorus  and  this 
moorland  parish!     But  the  land  was  the  old 

165 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

Manann!  The  spirit  may  have  lingered  in  the 
earth  and  air,  a  deadly  legacy  from  Pict  and 
Roman.  I  had  felt  the  uncanniness  of  the  place ; 
I  had  augured  ill  of  it  from  the  first.  And  then 
in  sheer  disgust  I  rose  and  splashed  my  face  with 
cold  water. 

I  lay  down  again,  laughing  miserably  at  my 
credulity.  That  I,  the  sober  and  rational,  should 
believe  in  this  crazy  fable,  was  too  palpably  ab- 
surd. I  would  steel  my  mind  resolutely  against 
such  harebrained  theories.  It  was  a  mere  bodily 
ailment, — liver  out  of  order,  weak  heart,  bad  cir- 
culation, or  something  of  that  sort.  At  the  worst 
it  miglit  be  some  affection  of  the  brain  to  be 
treated  by  a  specialist.  I  vowed  to  myself  that 
next  morning  the  best  doctor  in  Edinburgh 
should  be  brought  to  More. 

The  worst  of  it  was  that  my  duty  compelled 
me  to  stand  my  ground.  I  foresaw  the  few  re- 
maining weeks  of  my  holiday  blighted.  I  should 
be  tied  to  this  moorland  prison,  a  sort  of  keeper 
and  nurse  in  one,  tormented  by  silly  fancies.  It 
was  a  charming  prospect,  and  the  thought  of 
Glenaicill  and  the  woodcock  made  me  bitter 
against  Ladlaw.  But  there  was  no  way  out  of  it. 
I  might  do  Ladlaw  good,  and  I  could  not  have 
Sybil  worn  to  death  by  his  vagaries. 

i66 


II 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

My  ill-nature  comforted  me,  and  I  forgot 
the  horror  of  the  thing  in  its  vexation.  After 
that,  I  think  I  fell  asleep  and  dozed  uneasily  till 
morning.  When  I  awoke  I  was  in  a  better 
frame  of  mind.  The  early  sun  had  worked 
wonders  with  the  moorland.  The  low  hills  stood 
out  fresh-coloured  and  clear  against  the  pale  Oc- 
tober sky,  the  elders  sparkled  with  frost,  the  raw 
film  of  morn  was  rising  from  the  little  loch 
in  tiny  clouds.  It  was  a  cold  rousing  day,  and  I 
dressed  in  good  spirits  and  went  down  to  break- 
fast. 

I  found  Ladlaw  looking  ruddy  and  well,  very 
different  from  the  broken  man  I  remembered  of 
the  night  before.  We  were  alone,  for  Sybil  was 
breakfasting  in  bed.  I  remarked  on  his  raven- 
ous appetite,  and  he  smiled  cheerily.  He  made 
two  jokes  during  the  meal,  he  laughed  often,  and 
I  began  to  forget  the  events  of  the  previous 
day.  It  seemed  to  me  that  I  might  still  flee  from 
More  with  a  clear  conscience.  He  had  forgot- 
ten about  his  illness.  When  I  touched  distantly 
upon  the  matter  he  showed  a  blank  face. 

It  might  be  that  the  affection  had  passed:  on 
the  other  hand,  it  might  return  to  him  at  the 
darkening — I  had  no  means  to  decide.  His  man- 
ner was  still  a  trifle  distrait  and  peculiar,  and  I 

167 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

did  not  like  the  dulness  in  his  eye.  At  any  rate, 
I  should  spend  the  day  in  his  company,  and  the 
evening  would  decide  the  question. 

I  proposed  shooting,  which  he  promptly 
vetoed.  He  was  no  good  at  walking,  he  said, 
and  the  birds  were  wild.  This  seriously  limited 
the  possible  occupations.  Fishing  there  was 
none,  and  hill-climbing  was  out  of  the  question. 
He  proposed  a  game  at  billiards,  and  I  pointed 
to  the  glory  of  the  morning.  It  would  have 
been  sacrilege  to  waste  such  sunshine  in  knock- 
ing balls  about.  Finally  we  agreed  to  drive 
somewhere  and  have  lunch,  and  he  ordered  the 
dog-cart. 

In  spite  of  all  forebodings  I  enjoyed  the  day. 
We  drove  in  the  opposite  direction  from  the 
woodland  parts,  right  away  across  the  moor  to 
the  coal-country  beyond.  We  lunched  at  the  lit- 
tle mining  town  of  Borrowmuir,  in  a  small  and 
noisy  public-house.  The  roads  made  bad  going, 
the  country  was  far  from  pretty,  and  yet  the 
drive  did  not  bore  me.  Ladlaw  talked  inces- 
santly, talked  as  I  had  never  heard  man  talk  be- 
fore. There  was  something  indescribable  in 
all  he  said, — a  different  point  of  view,  a  lost 
groove  of  thought,  a  kind  of  innocence  and 
archaic  shrewdness  in  one.    I  can  only  give  you  a 

i68 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

hint  of  it  by  saying  that  it  was  like  the  mind  of 
an  early  ancestor  placed  suddenly  among  modern 
surroundings.  It  was  wise  with  a  remote  wis- 
dom, and  silly  (now  and  then)  with  a  quite  an- 
tique and  distant  silliness. 

I  will  give  you  instances  of  both.  He  pro- 
vided me  with  a  theory  of  certain  early  forti- 
fications, which  must  be  true,  which  commends 
itself  to  the  mind  with  overwhelming  convic- 
tion, and  yet  which  is  so  out  of  the  way  of  com- 
mon speculation  that  no  man  could  have  guessed 
it.  I  do  not  propose  to  set  down  the  details,  for 
I  am  working  at  it  on  my  own  account.  Again, 
he  told  me  the  story  of  an  old  marriage  custom, 
which  till  recently  survived  in  this  district, — 
told  it  with  full  circumstantial  detail  and  con- 
stant allusions  to  other  customs  which  he  could 
not  possibly  have  known  of.  Now  for  the  other 
side.  He  explained  why  well-water  is  in  winter 
warmer  than  a  running  stream,  and  this  was  his 
explanation.  At  the  Antipodes  our  winter  is 
summer;  consequently  the  water  of  a  well  which 
comes  through  from  the  other  side  of  the  earth 
must  be  warm  in  winter  and  cold  in  summer, 
since  in  our  summer  it  is  winter  there.  You  per- 
ceive what  this  is.  It  is  no  mere  silliness,  but  a 
genuine  effort  of  an  early  mind  which  had  just 

169 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

grasped  the  fact  of  the  Antipodes,  to  use  it  in 
explanation. 

Gradually  I  was  forced  to  the  belief  that  it 
was  not  Ladlaw  who  was  talking  to  me,  but 
something  speaking  through  him,  something  at 
once  wiser  and  simpler.  My  old  fear  of  the 
Devil  began  to  depart.  This  spirit,  this  exhala- 
tion, whatever  it  was,  was  ingenuous  in  its  way, 
at  least  in  its  daylight  aspect.  For  a  moment  I 
had  an  idea  that  it  was  a  real  reflex  of  Byzan- 
tine thought,  and  that  by  cross-examining  I 
might  make  marvellous  discoveries.  The  ar- 
dour of  the  scholar  began  to  rise  in  me,  and  I 
asked  a  question  about  that  much-debated  point, 
the  legal  status  of  the  apocrisiarii.  To  my  vexa- 
tion he  gave  no  response.  Clearly  the  intelli- 
gence of  this  familiar  had  its  limits. 

It  was  about  three  in  the  afternoon,  and  we 
had  gone  half  of  our  homeward  journey,  when 
signs  of  the  old  terror  began  to  appear.  I  was 
driving,  and  Ladlaw  sat  on  my  left.  I  noticed 
him  growing  nervous  and  silent,  shivering  at  the 
flick  of  the  whip,  and  turning  half-way  round 
towards  me.  Then  he  asked  me  to  change 
places,  and  I  had  the  unpleasant  work  of  driv- 
ing from  the  wrong  side.  After  that  I  do  not 
think  he  spoke  once  till  we  arrived  at  More, 

170 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

but  sat  huddled  together  with  the  driving-rug 
almost  up  to  his  chin — an  eccentric  figure  of  a 
man. 

I  foresaw  another  such  night  as  the  last,  and  I 
confess  my  heart  sank.  I  had  no  stomach  for 
more  mysteries,  and  somehow  with  the  approach 
of  twilight  the  confidence  of  the  day  departed. 
TJie  thing  appeared  in  darker  colours,  and  I 
could  have  found  it  in  my  mind  to  turn  coward. 
Sybil  alone  deterred  me.  I  could  not  bear  to 
think  of  her  alone  with  this  demented  being.  I 
remembered  her  shy  timidity,  her  innocence.  It 
was  monstrous  that  the  poor  thing  should  be 
called  on  thus  to  fight  alone  with  phantoms.  So 
I  braced  myself  for  another  evening. 

When  we  came  to  the  House  it  was  almost 
sunset.  Ladlaw  got  out  very  carefully  on  the 
right  side,  and  for  a  second  stood  by  the  horse. 
The  sun  was  making  our  shadows  long,  and  as  I 
stood  beyond  him,  it  seemed  for  a  moment  that 
his  shadow  was  double.  It  may  have  been  mere 
fancy,  for  I  had  not  time  to  look  twice.  He 
was  standing,  as  I  have  said,  with  his  left  side 
next  the  horse.  Suddenly  the  harmless  elderly 
cob  fell  into  a  very  panic  of  fright,  reared  up- 
right, and  all  but  succeeded  in  killing  its  master. 
I  was  in  time  to  pluck  Ladlaw  from  under  its 

171 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

feet,  but  the  beast  had  become  perfectly  un- 
manageable, and  we  left  a  groom  struggling  to 
quiet  it. 

In  the  hall  the  butler  gave  me  a  telegram.  It 
was  from  my  clerk,  summoning  me  back  at  once 
to  an  important  consultation.  , 

II :  THE  MINISTER  INTERVENES 

Here  was  a  prompt  removal  of  my  scruples! 
There  could  be  no  question  of  my  remaining, 
for  the  case  was  one  of  the  first  importance, 
which  I  had  feared  might  break  up  my  holiday. 
The  consultation  fell  in  vacation-time  to  meet  the 
convenience  of  certain  people  who  were  going 
abroad,  and  there  was  the  most  instant  demand 
for  my  presence.  I  must  go  and  at  once;  and,  as 
I  hunted  in  the  time-table,  I  found  that  in  five 
hours'  time  a  night-train  for  the  South  would 
pass  Borrowmuir,  which  might  be  stopped  by 
special  wire.  This  would  give  me  time  for  din- 
ner and  a  comfortable  departure. 

But  I  had  no  pleasure  in  my  freedom,  for  I 
was  in  despair  about  Sybil.  I  must  return  to 
More — that  was  clear;  and  I  must  find  some  one 
to  look  after  Ladlaw.  I  found  my  cousin  in  the 
drawing-room  alone  and  told  her  my  plans. 

She  was  very  pale  and  fragile,  and  she  seemed 
172 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

to  shiver  as  the  prospect  of  solitude  returned  to 
her.  I  spoke  with  all  the  carelessness  I  could 
muster.  '^I  am  coming  back,"  I  said.  "Don't 
think  you  have  got  rid  of  me  so  easily.  It  is 
most  unpleasant  to  have  to  travel  eight  hundred 
miles  in  thirty-six  hours,  but  there  is  no  help  for 
it.  I  ought  to  be  back  again  by  Friday  morning. 
And  you  know  Bob  is  much  better.  He  was 
quite  like  his  old  self  driving  to-day." 

My  words  comforted  the  poor  child,  and  I 
went  away  with  the  novel  feeling  of  a  good  con- 
science. Frankly,  I  hate  the  sordid  and  unpleas- 
ant. I  am  honestly  a  sun-worshipper;  I  have 
small  taste  for  arduous  duty,  and  the  quixotic  is 
my  abhorrence.  My  professional  success  is  an 
accident,  for  Lord  knows  I  had  no  impulse  to 
contend  and  little  ambition.  But  somewhere 
or  other  I  have  the  rudiments  of  an  austere  con- 
science. It  gives  me  no  peace,  and  as  I  love  a 
quiet  life,  I  do  its  bidding  with  a  grumble. 
Now  I  grumbled  fiercely  in  spirit,  but  outwardly 
I  was  a  model  of  virtuous  cheerfulness. 

But  to  find  somebody  to  keep  Ladlaw  com- 
pany— there  was  the  rub.  I  racked  my  brains 
to  think  of  a  substitute.  It  must  be  a  man  of 
some  education  and  not  a  mere  servant,  and  it 
must  be  somebody  in  the  parish  of  More;  the 

173 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

conjunction  seemed  for  the  moment  impossible. 
Then  a  brilliant  idea  struck  me.  There  was  the 
minister  of  Morebrig,  the  ugly  village  by  the 
roadside.  I  remembered  him  on  previous  visits. 
He  was  a  burly  young  ifian,  with  a  high  com- 
plexion and  a  drooping  blonde  moustache,  who 
smoked  cheap  cigarettes  incessantly,  and  spat; 
He  had  been  what  they  call  a  "brilliant  student," 
and  he  was  reported  to  be  something  of  an 
orator,  eagerly  sought  after  by  city  congrega- 
tions, but  at  present  hiding  his  light  under  the 
bushel  of  Morebrig  to  allow  him  time  to  pre- 
pare some  great  theological  work.  Ladlaw  had 
liked  him  in  a  half-amused  and  tolerant  way, 
and  he  used  to  come  sometimes  to  dine.  His 
name  was  Bruce  Oliphant,  and  he  inhabited  a 
dark  manse  at  the  outskirts  of  the  village. 

I  had  an  hour  before  dinner,  and  I  set  out  for 
Mr  Oliphant's  dwelling.  I  remember  the  curi- 
ous dull  village  street,  without  colour  or  life, 
drab  women  looking  out  of  dingy  doorways,  and 
a  solitary  child  playing  in  the  red  mud.  The 
manse  stood  at  the  back  of  the  usual  elder 
thicket,  a  little  place  with  small  windows  and  a 
weather-stained  front  door.  A  gaunt  old  serv- 
ant ushered  me  into  Mr  Oliphant's  study,  where 
I  found  that  young  man  smoking  and  reading  a 

174 


n 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

weekly  paper.  It  was  a  room  well  stocked  with 
books  in  the  popular  religious  vein,  and  the 
Poets  in  gilt  editions  adorned  his  shelves.  Mr 
Oliphant  greeted  me  with  the  nervous  ease  of 
one  who  would  fain  cultivate  a  good  manner. 
The  first  sight  of  him  sent  my  hopes  down.  He 
had  a  large  calf-like  face,  mildly  arrogant  eyes, 
and  a  chin  which  fell  sharply  away  beneath  the 
eaves  of  his  moustache.  This  was  not  one  to  do 
Ladlaw  much  good;  indeed  I  questioned  if  I 
could  ever  make  him  understand,  for  the  man  be- 
fore me  had  an  impenetrable  air  of  omniscience. 

^I  have  come  to  ask  you  a  great  favour  on  be- 
half of  the  Ladlaws,"  said  I.  "You  are  the 
only  other  gentleman  in  the  parish  of  More,  and 
it  is  your  duty  to  help  your  neighbours." 

He  bowed,  with  pleased  eyes.  "Anything," 
he  said.    "I'll  be  very  glad." 

'I  am  staying  there  just  now,  you  know,  and  as 
it  happens  I  must  go  back  to  town  by  the  night- 
train.  I'll  only  be  gone  a  day,  but  you  know  that 
Ladlaw  is  a  melancholy  beggar  and  gets  low- 
spirited.  Now  I  want  you  to  go  up  and  stay  at 
the  House  for  a  couple  of  nights  while  I  am 
away." 

It  was  an  odd  request,  and  he  stared  at  me. 
"Why,  what's  wrong  with  Mr  Ladlaw?"  he 

175 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

asked.  ^'I  should  never  have  called  him  mel- 
ancholy. Now,  his  lady  is  different.  She  al- 
w^ays  looks  a  little  pale.  Did  she  send  you  to 
ask  me?"  Mr  Oliphant  was  a  stickler  for  the 
usages  of  polite  society. 

I  sat  down  in  a  chair  and  took  one  of  his  ciga- 
rettes. "Now,  look  here,  Oliphant,"  I  said. 
"You  are  a  man  of  education  and  common-sense, 
and  I  am  going  to  do  you  the  honour  to  tell  you 
a  story  which  I  would  not  tell  to  a  stupid  man. 
A  stupid  man  would  laugh  at  me.  I  hope  you 
will  see  the  gravity  of  the  thing." 

I  told  him  briefly  the  points  in  Ladlaw's  case. 
His  eyes  grew  very  round  as  I  went  on,  and 
when  I  finished  he  laughed  nervously.  He  was 
clearly  impressed;  but  he  was  too  ignorant  and 
unimaginative  to  understand  fully,  and  he  had 
his  credit  as  a  representative  of  modern  thought 
to  support.  "Oh,  come  now!  You  don^t  mean 
all  that;  I  never  heard  the  like  of  it.  You  can't 
expect  me  as  a  Christian  man  to  believe  in  a 
Pagan  spirit.  I  might  as  well  believe  in  ghosts 
at  once.  What  has  the  familiar  of  a  heathen  em- 
peror to  do  with  this  parish?" 

"Justinian  was  a  Christian,"  I  said. 

He  looked  puzzled.  "It's  all  preposterous. 
Meaning  no  disrespect  to  you,  I  must  decline  to 

176 


I 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

believe  it.  My  profession  compels  me  to  dis- 
courage such  nonsense." 

'^So  does  mine,"  I  said  wearily.  "Good  Lord! 
man,  do  you  think  I  came  here  to  tell  you  a  fairy 
tale?  It's  the  most  terrible  earnest.  Now  I  want 
you  to  give  me  an  answer,  for  I  have  very  little 
time." 

He  was  still  incredulous  and  inclined  to  argue. 
"Do  you  know  if  Mr.  Ladlaw  has  been — eh — a 
strictly  temperate  man?"  he  asked. 

With  this  my  patience  departed.  I  got  up  to 
go,  with  rude  thoughts  on  the  stupidity  of  the 
clergy.  But  Mr  Oliphant  was  far  from  a  re- 
fusal. He  had  no  objection  to  exchange  the  bar- 
ren comfort  of  the  manse  for  the  comparative 
luxury  of  the  House,  and  he  had  no  distrust  of 
his  power  to  enliven.  As  he  accompanied  me 
to  the  door  he  explained  his  position.  "You  see, 
if  they  really  want  me  I  will  come.  Tell  Mrs 
Ladlaw  that  I  shall  be  delighted.  Mrs  Ladlaw 
is  a  lady  for  whom  I  have  a  great  respect." 

"So  have  I,"  I  said  crossly.  "Very  well.  A 
trap  shall  be  sent  for  you  after  dinner.  Good 
evening,  Mr  Oliphant.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  have 
met  you." 

When  I  .reached  the  House,  I  told  Sybil  of  my 
arrangement.     For  the  first  time  since  my  ar- 

177 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

rival  she  smiled.  "It's  very  kind  of  him,  but  I 
am  afraid  he  won't  do  much  good.  Bob  will 
frighten  him  away." 

"I  fancy  he  won't.  The  man  is  strong  in  his 
self-confidence  and  remarkably  dense.  He'll 
probably  exasperate  Bob  into  sanity.  In  any 
case  I'll  be  back  by  Friday  morning." 

As  I  drove  away  the  trap  arrived  at  the  door, 
bringing  Mr  Oliphant  and  his  portmanteau. 

The  events  of  the  next  twenty-four  hours,  dur- 
ing which  I  was  travelling  in  the  Scotch  ex- 
press or  transacting  dreary  business  in  my  cham- 
bers, are  known  only  from  the  narrative  of  the 
minister.  He  wrote  it  out  some  weeks  after  at 
my  request,  for  I  wished  to  have  all  the  links  in 
the  tale.  I  propose  to  give  the  gist  of  it,  as  he 
wrote  it,  stripped  of  certain  reflections  on  human 
life  and  an  inscrutable  Providence,  with  which 
he  had  garnished  it. 

Narrative  of  the  Reverend  Mr  Oliphant 

I  arrived  at  the  House  of  More  at  a  quarter- 
past  eight  on  the  Wednesday  evening.  The 
family  had  dined  early,  as  Mr  Grey  was  leaving 
for  London,  and  when  I  arrived  I  was  taken  to 
the  library,  where  I  found  Mr  Ladlaw.    I  had 

178 


A\ 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

not  seen  him  for  some  time,  and  thought  him 
looking  pale  and  a  little  haggard.  He  seemed 
glad  to  see  me,  and  made  me  sit  down  in  a  chair 
on  his  left  and  draw  it  up  close  to  him.  I 
wondered  at  his  manner,  for  though  we  had  al- 
ways been  on  good  terms  he  had  never  admitted 
me  to  any  close  intimacy.  But  now  he  was  more 
than  amiable.  He  made  me  ring  for  toddy,  and 
though  he  refused  to  taste  it  himself,  he  pressed 
the  beverage  on  me.  Then  he  gave  me  a  large 
cigar,  at  which  I  trembled,  and  finally  he  said 
that  we  should  play  at  picquet.  I  declined  reso- 
lutely, for  it  is  part  of  my  conscience  to  refuse  to 
join  in  any  card  games ;  but  he  made  no  trouble, 
and  indeed  in  a  moment  seemed  to  have  forgot- 
ten his  proposition. 

The  next  thing  he  did  startled  my  composure. 
For  he  asked  abruptly,  "Do  you  believe  in  a 
living  personal  Devil,  Oliphant?" 

I  was  taken  aback,  but  answered  that  to  the 
best  of  my  light  I  did  not. 

"And  why  not?"  he  asked  sharply. 

I  explained  that  it  was  an  old,  false,  anthro- 
pomorphic fiction,  and  that  the  modern  belief 
was  infinitely  more  impressive.  I  quoted  the 
words  of  Dr  Rintoul,  one  of  our  Church  leaders. 

179 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

I  am  sorry  to  say  that  Mr  Ladlaw's  words  were, 
^^DrRintoulbed— dF' 

"Who  the  deuce  are  you  to  change  the  belief 
of  centuries?"  he  cried.  "Our  forefathers  be- 
lieved in  him.  They  saw  him  at  evening  slink- 
ing about  the  folds  and  peat-stacks,  or  wrapped 
up  in  a  black  gown  standing  in  the  pulpits  of  the 
Kirk.    Are  we  wiser  men  than  they?" 

I  answered  that  culture  had  undoubtedly  ad- 
vanced in  our  day. 

Mr  Ladlaw  replied  with  blasphemous  w^ords 
on  modern  culture.  I  had  imagined  him  to  be  a 
gentleman  of  considerable  refinement,  and  I 
knew  he  had  taken  a  good  degree  at  college. 
Consequently,  I  was  disagreeably  surprised  at 
his  new  manner. 

"You  are  nothing  better  than  an  ignorant  par- 
son,"— these  were  his  words, — "and  you  haven't 
even  the  merits  of  your  stupid  profession.  The 
old  Scots  ministers  were  Calvinists  to  the  back- 
bone, and  they  were  strong  men — strong  men,  do 
you  hear? — and  they  left  their  mark  upon  the 
nation.  But  your  new  tea-meeting  kind  of  par- 
son, who  has  nothing  but  a  smattering  of  bad 
German  to  commend  him,  is  a  nuisance  to  God 
and  man.  And  they  don't  believe  in  the  Devil! 
Well,  he'll  get  them  safe  enough  some  day." 

1 80 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

I  implored  him  to  remember  my  cloth,  and 
curb  his  bad  language. 

'^I  say  the  Devil  will  get  you  all  safe  enough 
some  day,"  he  repeated. 

I  rose  to  retire  in  as  dignified  a  manner  as  pos- 
sible, but  he  was  before  me  and  closed  the  door. 
I  began  to  be  genuinely  frightened. 

^Tor  God's  sake,  don't  go!"  he  cried.  ^'Don't 
leave  me  alone.  Do  sit  down,  Oliphant,  like  a 
good  chap,  and  I  promise  to  hold  my  tongue. 
You  don't  know  how  horrible  it  is  to  be  left 
alone." 

I  sat  down  again,  though  my  composure  was 
shaken.  I  remembered  Mr  Grey's  words  about 
the  strange  sickness. 

Then  Mr  Ladlaw  fell  into  an  extraordinary 
moodiness.  He  sat  huddled  up  in  his  chair,  his 
face  turned  away  from  me,  and  for  some  time 
neither  of  us  spoke  a  word.  I  thought  that  I  had 
seriously  offended  him,  and  prepared  to  apolo- 
gise, so  I  touched  his  left  shoulder  to  attract  his 
attention.  Instantly  he  jumped  to  his  feet, 
screaming,  and  turned  on  me  a  face  of  utter  ter- 
ror. I  could  do  nothing  but  stare  at  him,  and  in 
a  second  he  quieted  down  and  returned  to  his 
seat. 

Then  he  became  partially  sane,  and  mur- 
i8i 


JHE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

mured  a  sort  of  excuse.  I  thought  that  I  would 
discover  what  truth  lay  in  Mr  Grey's  singular 
hypothesis.  I  did  not  ask  him  bluntly,  as  an 
ordinary  man  would  have  done,  what  was  his 
malady,  but  tactfully,  as  I  thought  then,  I  led 
the  conversation  to  demoniacal  possession  in  the 
olden  time,  and  quoted  Pellinger's  theory  on  the 
Scriptural  cases.  He  answered  with  extraor- 
dinary vehemence,  showing  a  childish  credulity 
I  little  expected  from  an  educated  man. 

"I  see  that  you  hold  to  the  old  interpretation," 
I  said  pleasantly.  "Nowadays,  we  tend  to  find 
the  solution  in  natural  causes." 

"Heavens,  man!"  he  cried.  "What  do  you 
mean  by  natural?  You  haven't  the  most  rudi- 
mentary knowledge  of  nature.  Listen  to  me,  and 
I  will  tell  you  something." 

And  with  this  he  began  a  long  rambling  ac- 
count of  something  which  I  could  not  under- 
stand. He  talked  much  about  a  name  which 
sounded  like  Canaan,  and  then  he  wandered  to 
another  subject  and  talked  about  Proserpina, 
whom  I  remembered  from  Mr  Matthew  Ar- 
nold's poem.  I  would  have  thought  him  trying 
to  ridicule  me,  if  I  had  not  seen  his  face,  which 
was  white  and  drawn  with  pain;  and,  again,  I 
would  have  thought  him  drunk,  but  for  his  well- 

182 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

known  temperate  habits.  By-and-by  even  my 
nerves,  which  are  very  strong,  began  to  suffer.  I 
understood  fragments  of  his  talk,  and  the  under- 
standing did  not  reassure  me.  It  was  poisonous 
nonsense,  but  it  had  a  terrible  air  of  realism. 
He  had  a  queer  habit  of  catching  at  his  heart 
like  a  man  with  the  heart  disease,  and  his  eyes 
were  like  a  mad  dog's  I  once  saw,  the  pupil 
drawn  to  a  pin-point  with  fear.  I  could  not  bear 
it,  so  I  tried  to  break  the  spell.  I  offered,  against 
my  conscience,  to  play  a  card  game,  but  his  face 
showed  that  he  did  not  understand  me.  I  began 
to  feel  a  sort  of  languor  of  terror.  I  could 
hardly  rise  from  my  chair,  and  when  at  last  I 
got  up  the  whole  room  seemed  haunted.  I 
rushed  to  the  bell  and  rang  it  violently,  and  then 
tried  to  open  the  door.  But  he  was  before  me 
again,  and  gripped  my  arm  so  fiercely  that  I 
cried  out  between  the  pain  and  my  dread  of  him. 

"Come  back!"  he  cried  hoarsely.  "Don't 
leave  me  alone.     For  God's  sake,  Oliphant!" 

Just  then  the  man-servant  opened  the  door, 
and  found  the  two  of  us  standing  like  lunatics.  I 
had  the  sense  to  save  the  situation,  and  I  asked 
him  to  bring  more  coals  for  the  fire.  Then  as 
soon  as  he  turned  to  go,  I  stepped  out  of  the 
open  door  before  Mr  Ladlaw  could  prevent  me. 

183 


THE  WAl  CHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

The  hall  seemed  empty,  but  to  my  surprise  I 
found  Mrs  Ladlaw  sleeping  in  a  chair  by  the 
fire.  I  did  not  like  to  waken  her,  but  I  was  at 
my  wits'  end  with  fright.  If  I  had  known  the 
way  to  the  kitchen,  I  should  have  sought  the 
servants'  company.  I  ran  down  a  passage,  but 
it  seemed  to  end  in  a  blind  wall,  and  in  a  great 
fear  I  turned  and  ran  upstairs.  But  the  upper 
lobbies  seemed  to  be  unlit,  and  I  was  turning 
back  when  I  heard  Ladlaw's  voice  behind  me. 
It  was  muffled  and  queer,  and  the  sound  drove 
me  into  the  darkness.  When  I  turned  a  corner, 
to  my  relief  I  saw  a  lamp  burning  on  a  table  and 
recognised  my  bedroom  door.  Here  was  sanctu- 
ary at  last,  and  I  ran  in  and  shut  it  behind  me. 

My  nerves  were  so  shaken  by  the  evening's 
performances  that  I  found  it  impossible  to  get 
to  sleep.  I  sat  up  the  better  part  of  the  night  by 
the  fire,  and  smoked  several  cigarettes,  which  in 
ordinary  circumstances  I  should  never  have 
dared  to  do  in  a  strange  bedroom.  About  four 
o'clock,  I  think,  I  dozed  off  in  my  chair,  and 
awoke  about  nine,  very  stiff  and  cold,  to  find 
Ladlaw  laughing  at  me  in  the  doorway. 

I  was  at  first  so  confused  that  I  did  not  remem- 
ber what  had  scared  me  the  night  before.  Then, 
as  it  came  back  to  me,  I  was  amazed  at  my 

184 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

host's  appearance.  He  looked  fresh  and  well, 
and  in  excellent  spirits.  He  laughed  im- 
moderately when  he  found  I  had  not  gone  to 
bed. 

^^You  do  look  cheap,"  he  said.,  "Breakfast's  in 
half  an  hour.  You  will  feel  better  when  you 
have  had  a  tub." 

I  bathed  reluctantly,  feeling  ill  and  bitterly 
cold;  but  I  was  comforted  by  a  good  breakfast. 
Then  I  had  an  opportunity  of  talking  to  Mrs 
Ladlaw.  As  I  remembered  her,  she  had  been 
fidl  of  gaiety,  and  even,  I  thought,  a  little  frivo- 
lous; but  now  she  was  so  pale  and  silent  that  I 
pitied  her  sincerely.  I  began  to  feel  an  intense 
dislike  of  her  husband,  partly  for  the  fright  he 
had  given  me  the  night  before,  and  partly  for 
tlie  effect  his  silliness  seemed  to  be  having  on 
his  wife.  The  day  was  a  fine  one,  but  after 
breakfast  he  showed  no  intention  of  going  out. 
I  expected  to  be  asked  to  shoot,  a  sport  which  I 
sometimes  try;  but  he  never  spoke  of  it,  and 
insisted  on  my  coming  to  the  billiard-room.  As 
we  were  leaving  the  table  Mrs  Ladlaw  touched 
my  arm,  and  asked  me  in  a  low  tone  if  I  would 
promise  to  stay  all  day  with  her  husband.  "I 
v/ant  to  go  down  to  Morefoot,"  she  said,  "and 
you  know  he  cannot  be  left  alone."    I  promised 

185 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

willingly,  for  in  the  daylight  Mr  Ladlaw  had 
no  terrors  for  me.  I  thought  that  Mrs  Ladlaw 
looked  relieved.  Poor  thing!  she  badly  needed 
a  respite. 

We  hung  aimlessly  about  the  place  till  lunch, 
playing  a  few  games  of  billiards,  and  in  the 
intervals  looking  at  stables  and  harness-rooms 
and  the  now  barren  gardens.  At  lunch  Mrs 
Ladlaw  appeared,  but  immediately  after  I  heard 
wheels  on  the  gravel  and  knew  that  she  had  gone 
to  Morefoot.  Then  I  began  to  feel  nervous 
again.  I  was  the  only  responsible  person  left  in 
the  place,  and  Mr  Ladlaw  might  at  any  moment 
relapse  into  craziness.  I  watched  his  moods 
anxiously,  and  talked  all  the  nonsense  I  knew  to 
keep  him  in  good  humour.  I  told  him  stories,  I 
talked  wildly  of  sport,  I  made  ridiculous  jokes 
at  which  I  felt  myself  blushing.  At  first  he 
seemed  amused,  but  soon  I  felt  that  my  words 
were  falling  on  deaf  ears.  He  himself  began  to 
talk,  violently,  incessantly,  and,  I  may  say,  bril- 
liantly. If  my  memory  had  been  better  and  my 
balance  less  upset,  I  might  have  made  my  repu- 
tation, though  it  would  have  been  a  reputation, 
perhaps,  that  a  minister  of  the  Gospel  might  well 
look  askance  at.  I  could  have  written  a  terrible 
romance  from  that  man's  babbling.     Nay,   I 

i86 


4\ 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

could  have  done  more:  I  could  have  com- 
posed a  new  philosophy  which  would  have 
cast  Nietzsche  in  the  shade  for  ever.  I 
do  not  wish  to  exaggerate,  but  I  have  never 
been  so  impressed  with  a  sense  of  a  crazy  intel- 
lectual acumen.  This  Mr  Ladlaw,  whom  I  had 
known  as  a  good  landlord  and  a  respectable 
country  gentleman,  now  appeared  as  a  kind  of 
horrible  genius,  a  brilliant  and  malignant  satyr. 
I  was  shocked  and  confounded,  and  at  the  Si  me 
time  filled  with  admiration.  I  remember  that 
we  passed  through  the  dining-room,  where  there 
was  a  great  marble  bust  of  a  Roman  emperor, 
an  old  discoloured  thing,  but  wonderful  in  its 
way.  Mr  Ladlaw  stopped  before  it  and  pointed 
out  its  merits.  The  thing  seemed  simple  enough, 
and  yet  after  the  description  I  fled  from  it  as  if 
it  had  been  a  devil.  He  followed  me,  still  talk- 
ing, and  we  found  ourselves  in  the  library. 

I  remember  that  I  suggested  tea,  but  he 
scarcely  heeded  me.  The  darkness  was  falling, 
Mrs  Ladlaw  had  not  returned,  and  I  felt  hor- 
ribly uncomfortable.  I  tried  to  draw  him  away 
from  the  room  which  I  feared,  but  he  made  no 
sign  of  understanding.  I  perceived  that  the 
malady  of  the  last  night  was  returning.  I  hated 
that  library,  with  its  low  fire,  its  ghastly  white 

187 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

books,  and  its  dreary  outlook.  I  picked  up  one 
volume,  and  it  was  lettered  on  the  back  ^Sancti 
Adelberti  Certamina.'  I  dropped  it,  only  to  feel 
Mr  Ladlaw  clutching  my  right  arm  and 
dragging  me  to  one  of  those  horrible  arm-chairs. 

"The  night  is  coming  on,  the  old  Nox  Atra 
that  the  monks  dreaded.  Promise  me  that  you 
won't  go  away." 

I  promised  feebly,  and  prayed  for  Mrs  Lad- 
law's  return.  I  suggested  that  the  lamps  should 
be  lit.  He  rose  and  tried  to  light  the  hanging 
central  one,  and  I  noticed  how  his  hands 
trembled.  His  awkwardness  upset  the  thing, 
and  it  fell  with  a  crash  on  the  floor.  He  jumped 
back  with  a  curious  scream  like  an  animal. 

I  was  so  miserably  scared  that  I  had  not  the 
heart  to  do  the  work  for  him,  so  we  sat  on  in  the 
darkness.  Any  sound  from  the  out-of-doors 
would  have  comforted  me,  but  the  whole  world 
was  as  silent  as  death.  I  felt  that  a  little  more 
would  drive  me  mad,  and  the  thought  roused  me 
to  make  a  final  effort  after  safety.  In  spite  of  all 
my  promises  I  must  get  away.  A  man's  first 
duty  was  to  himself,  and  the  hour  had  come  for 
me.  I  thought  with  longing  of  my  little  bare 
manse  and  my  solemn  housekeeper.     And  yet 

i88 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

how  was  I  to  escape,  for  this  man  was  the 
stronger,  and  he  would  never  let  me  go. 

I  begged  him  to  come  into  the  hall,  but  he  re- 
fused. Then  I  became  very  cunning.  I  sug- 
gested that  we  should  go  to  the  door  and  receive 
Mrs  Ladlaw.  He  did  not  know  that  she  had 
gone,  and  the  news  made  him  so  nervous  that  he 
accepted  my  proposal.  He  caught  my  arm  as 
before,  and,  leaning  heavily  upon  me,  went  into 
the  hall.  There  was  no  one  about,  and  the  fire 
had  died  down;  but  at  the  far  end  there  was  a 
pale  glimmer  from  the  glass  door.  We  opened 
it  and  stood  on  the  top  step,  looking  over  the 
dark  lawns.  Now  was  the  time  for  an  effort  for 
freedom.  If  I  could  only  get  rid  of  his  hand 
I  might  escape  across  the  fields.  I  believed  him 
to  be  too  weak  on  his  legs  to  follow  me,  and  in 
any  case  I  was  a  respectable  runner.  Out  of 
doors  he  seemed  less  formidable:  it  was  only  in 
that  haunted  room  that  I  shuddered. 

I  took  the  only  way  of  escape  which  presented 
itself.  There  was  a  flowering-shrub  in  a  pot  on 
the  top  of  the  parapet.  I  caught  this  with  my 
elbow  and  knocked  it  over,  so  that  it  broke  with 
a  clatter  on  the  stone.  As  I  expected,  he  screamed 
and  jumped  aside,  letting  go  my  arm  for  one 
instant.    The  next  I  was  down  the  steps  and  run- 

189 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

ning  hard  across  the  lawns  to  the  park  beyond. 
For  a  little  I  heard  him  stumbling  after  me, 
breathing  heavily  and  with  little  short  cries.  I 
ran  with  the  speed  of  fear,  for  till  I  was  within 
my  own  doors  I  could  feel  no  security.  Once  I 
turned  and  there  he  was,  a  field  behind  me,  run- 
ning with  his  head  down  like  a  blind  dog.  I 
skirted  the  village,  broke  through  the  little  fir 
plantation,  and  came  out  on  the  highway.  I  saw 
the  light  from  Jean's  little  window,  and  it  was 
like  a  beacon  of  hope.  In  a  few  minutes  I  was 
at  the  door,  and  my  servant  stared  as  I  rushed 
in,  without  hat  or  overcoat,  and  wet  with  perspi*- 
ration.  I  insisted  on  barring  the  doors,  and  bolt*- 
ing  and  shuttering  every  window.  Then  I  had 
the  unusual  luxury  of  a  fire  in  my  bedroom,  and 
there  I  supped,  and  sat  till  I  fell  asleep. 

End  of  Mr  Oliphanfs  Statement 

III :  EVENTS  ON  TP^  X«» LANDS 

I  RETURNED  from  town  by  the  night  express, 
which  landed  me  at  Borrowmuir  about  seven  on 
the  Friday  morning.  To  my  surprise  there  was 
no  dog-cart  to  meet  me,  as  had  been  arranged, 
and  I  was  compelled  to  hire  from  the  inn.  The 
omission  filled  me  with  forebodings.     Things 

190 


d 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

must  have  gone  badly  at  More  in  my  absence,  or 
the  careful  Sybil  would  never  have  forgotten.  I 
grudged  the  time  occupied  in  that  weary  drive. 
The  horse  seemed  intolerably  slow,  the  roads  un- 
accountably steep.  It  was  a  sharp  morning,  with 
haze  on  the  fields  and  promise  of  bright  sun- 
shine at  midday;  but,  tired  as  I  was  with  my 
two  days'  journey,  I  was  in  the  humour  to  see 
little  good  in  my  case.  I  was  thankful  when  we 
drew  up  at  the  house-door,  and,  cold  and  stiff, 
I  hobbled  up  the  steps. 

The  door  was  open,  and  I  entered.  The  hall 
was  empty,  there  was  no  sign  of  any  servant,  and 
all  the  doors  were  wide  to  the  wall.  I  tried  one 
room  after  another  without  success.  Then  I 
made  my  voice  heard  m  that  place.  I  shouted 
for  Ladlaw,  and  then  I  shouted  for  Sybil.  There 
came  no  answer,  and  in  despair  I  rushed  to  the 
kitchen  wing.  There  I  found  a  cluster  of 
frightened  maids,  and  by  dint  of  much  question- 
ing learned  the  truth. 

Ladlaw,  it  seemed,  had  disappeared  from  the 
house  about  a  quarter-past  six  on  the  previous 
night.  The  minister  had  decamped  and  found 
sanctuary  in  the  manse ;  but  there  was  no  trace 
of  the  other.  Sybil  had  gone  to  Morefoot  in 
the  afternoon,  and,  returning  about  half-past  six, 

191 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

found  her  husband  gone.  She  had  been  dis- 
tracted with  anxiety,  had  gone  to  the  manse, 
where  she  found  Mr  Oliphant  in  a  state  of  nerv- 
out  collapse  and  quite  unable  to  make  any  co- 
herent statement,  and  had  then  roused  some  of 
the  neighbouring  shepherds  and  organised  a 
search-party.  They  had  searched  all  night,  but 
so  far  no  word  had  come  of  the  result.  Mean- 
while, Sybil,  utterly  wearied  and  a  little  hys- 
terical, was  in  bed,  sleeping,  for  her  anxiety  of 
the  past  week  had  culminated  in  a  sort  of  deep 
languor,  which  in  the  circumstances  was  the  best 
thing  that  could  have  happened.  There  was  no 
question  of  wakening  her;  but,  as  I  snatched  a 
hurried  breakfast,  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  must 
at  once  follow  the  search.  They  were  to  meet  in 
the  morning  at  a  farm  called  Mossrigging,  be- 
neath a  hill  of  the  same  name,  and  if  I  went  there 
I  might  get  word  of  them.  In  the  meantime  I 
must  interview  Mr  Oliphant. 

I  found  him  in  bed,  unshaven,  and  very  hol- 
low about  the  eyes.  He  told  me  a  lame  story, 
and  indeed  his  fright  was  so  palpable  that  I 
had  not  the  heart  to  blame  him.  But  I  insisted 
that  he  should  get  up  and  come  with  me,  for 
every  man  would  be  needed  to  search  those 
mossy  uplands.    I  was  dog-tired,  sleepy,  and  ir- 

192 


•I 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

ritable,  and  yet  I  must  go :  why  should  not  this 
man,  who  had  had  his  night's  rest? 

He  made  some  feeble  objection ;  but  he  had  a 
conscience  of  his  own  and  rose  obediently.  We 
set  out  to  the  nearest  part  of  the  moor,  he  in  his 
clergyman's  garb,  and  I  in  a  dark  suit  and  a 
bowler;  and  I  remember  thinking  how  oddly 
unsuited  was  our  dress  for  this  stalking-game. 
I  was  wretchedly  anxious,  for  I  liked  Ladlaw, 
and  God  alone  knew  where  he  might  have  got  to 
in  the  night.  There  were  deep  bogs  and  ugly 
old  pit-shafts  on  the  moor,  and  there  were 
ravines  with  sheer  red  sides.  At  any  moment  we 
might  find  tragedy,  and  I  dreaded  the  report  of 
the  searchers  at  Mossrigging.  When  we  left  the 
road,  we  followed  an  old  cart-track  up  a  shal- 
low glen,  where  stood  some  curious  old  stone 
chimneys,  which  had  been  built  by  a  speculator 
who  hoped  to  make  a  fortune  from  peat.  The 
sua  was  beginning  to  break  through  the  haze, 
and  miles  of  low  moorland  were  disclosed  to 
left  and  right.  But  the  hills  in  front  were  still 
cloudy,  and  we  were  close  on  the  cottage  before 
we  knew  its  whereabouts.  It  stood  high  in  a 
crinkle  of  hill,  with  a  wide  prospect  north  and 
east  to  the  sea,  and  as  I  turned  I  saw  Morebrig 
smoking  clear  in  the  autumn  light,  and  the  chim- 

193 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

neys  of  the  House  above  the  fir-trees.  Out  on 
the  waters  three  ships  were  sailing  like  toy- 
boats,  a  reminder  of  the  bustling  modern  life  be- 
yond this  antique  place  of  horrors. 

The  house  was  full  of  men,  devouring  their 
morning  porridge.  They  were  shepherds  of  the 
neighbourhood,  and  two  boys  from  the  village, 
as  well  as  John  Ker,  the  head-keeper  from  More. 
One  man,  Robert  Tod  by  name,  answered  my  un- 
spoken question.  ^'We  havena  gotten  him,  but 
weVe  gotten  his  whereabouts.  We  got  a  glisk  o' 
him  about  six  this  mornin'  on  the  backside  o' 
the  Lowe  Moss.  I  kent  him  fine  by  the  way  he 
ran.  Lord,  but  he  was  souple!  Nane  o'  us 
could  come  within  a  hunner  yairds  o'  him. 
We'll  hae  to  wyse  him  gently,  sir,  and  some  o' 
us  '11  hae  to  tak  a  lang  cast  round  the  hill." 

I  had  no  ambition  to  ^'tak  a  lang  cast  round 
the  hill";  but  these  men  had  been  abroad  all 
night,  and  I  and  the  minister  must  undertake 
the  duty.  Tod  agreed  to  come  with  us,  and  the 
shaggy  silent  men  of  the  party  expounded  the 
plan  of  campaign.  The  Lowe  Moss  was  im- 
passable on  one  side,  on  another  bounded  by  a 
steep  hill-shoulder,  and  on  the  others  by  two 
narrow  glens.  They  would  watch  the  glens ;  we 
three  should  make  a  circuit  and  come  back  over 

194 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

the  hill,  driving  the  fugitive  before  us.  Once 
enclosed  between  the  moss  and  our  three  parties, 
he  should  be  an  easy  capture.  I  implored  them 
to  go  to  work  gently,  for  I  feared  that  he  might 
be  driven  into  the  bog.  They  shook  their  heads 
and  laughed :  it  was  all  a  kind  of  crazy  sport  to 
them,  and  their  one  idea  was  to  carry  out  their 
orders. 

I  confess  I  was  desperately  tired  before  we 
had  forded  the  upper  waters  of  the  More, 
crossed  the  Redscaurhead,  and  looked  over  the 
green  pasture-lands  to  the  south.  It  was  a  most 
curious  sight;  for  whereas  one  side  of  the  range 
was  rough  and  mossy  and  hideous  with  red 
scaurs,  the  other  was  a  gentle  slope  with  sweet 
hill-grass  and  bright  shallow  waters.  It  was  a 
ne^v  country  where  the  old  curse  could  not  reign, 
and  an  idea  took  possession  of  me  that  if  once 
Ladlaw  came  into  the  place  he  would  be  healed 
of  his  malady.  The  air  seemed  clearer,  the  sky 
softer,  the  whole  world  simple  and  clean.  We 
fetched  a  circuit  down  one  of  the  little  streahis 
till  we  came  to  the  back  of  the  hill  which  on  its 
face  is  called  Mossrigging.  I  was  abominably 
tired,  but  in  better  spirits.  As  for  the  minister, 
he  groaned  occasionally,  but  never  spoke  a  word. 

At  the  foot  we  separated  to  the  distance  of 
195 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

half  a  mile,  and  began  the  ascent.  So  far  there 
was  no  sign  of  our  man.  Tod  was  on  the  far 
east,  I  was  in  the  centre,  and  Mr  Oliphant  took 
the  west.  I  cannot  profess  to  remember  exactly 
all  the  incidents  of  that  climb.  I  was  too  stupid 
with  sleep  and  exertion,  and  the  little  distant 
figures  of  my  companions  danced  in  a  kind  of 
haze.  The  ascent  was  simple, — short  grass, 
varied  by  short  heather,  with  at  wide  intervals  a 
patch  of  shingle.  The  shepherd  walked  with  an 
easy  swing,  the  minister  stumbled  and  groaned, 
while  I,  in  sheer  bravado  and  irritation  at  my 
weakness,  kept  up  a  kind  of  despairing  trot.  The 
Devil  and  Ladlaw  combined  might  confront  me, 
but  I  was  too  tired  to  care.  Indeed,  in  a  little  I 
had  forgotten  all  about  the  purpose  of  our  quest 
Then,  quite  suddenly,  almost  at  the  summit, 
in  a  little  hollow  of  the  ridge,  I  saw  our  man. 
He  was  sitting  on  the  ground,  directly  in  the 
minister's  line,  and  his  head  was  sunk  on  his 
breast.  I  remembej  being  taken  with  a  horrid 
thought  that  he  was  dead,  and  quickened  my 
trot  to  a  run.  Meanwhile  the  minister  was  ap- 
proaching very  near,  but  apparently  quite  un- 
conscious of  his  presence.  His  eyes  were  in  the 
ends  of  the  earth,  and  he  ambled  along  with  no 
purpose  in  the  world. 

196 


^1 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

What  happened  rests  mainly  on  my  authority; 
but  Robert  Tod,  shepherd  in  Nether  Mossrig- 
ging,  is  ready  to  swear  to  the  essentials.  Mr 
Oliphant  stumbled  on  into  the  hollow  till  he  was 
within  ten  yards  of  the  sitting  figure.  Ladlaw 
never  moved ;  but  the  subtle  influence  which  tells 
of  human  presence  came  suddenly  upon  the  min- 
ister's senses,  for  he  lifted  his  eyes  and  started. 
The  man  was  still  scared  to  death,  and  he  nat- 
urally turned  to  run  away,  when  something  hap- 
pened which  I  cannot  well  explain.  Ladlaw 
was  still  sitting  with  his  head  on  his  breast,  and 
yet  it  was  clear  to  my  mind  that  Ladlaw  had 
somehow  risen  and  was  struggling  with  the  min- 
ister. I  could  see  the  man's  wrists  strained  and 
twisted  as  if  in  a  death-grapple,  and  his  white 
face  reddening  with  exertion.  He  seemed  to  be 
held  round  the  middle,  for  his  feet  tottered  sev- 
eral times,  and  once  he  lurched  to  the  left  side, 
so  that  I  thought  he  was  thrown.  And  yet  he 
was  only  battling  with  the  air,  for  there  was 
Ladlaw  sitting  quietly  some  yards  from  him. 

And  then  suddenly  the  contest  seemed  to 
cease.  Mr  Oliphant  ran  straight  past  the  sit- 
ting man  and  over  the  brow  of  the  hill.  Sur- 
prise had  held  Tod  and  myself  motionless.  Now 
the   spell   was  broken,   and   from   our  several 

197 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

places  we  ran  towards  Ladlaw.  I  heard  the 
shepherd's  loud  voice  crying,  "Look  at  Oli- 
phant!  Oliphant's  no  wise!"  and  I  thought  I 
heard  a  note  of  sardonic  mirth.  In  any  case,  it 
was  the  minister  he  was  after,  for  a  moment  later 
he  disappeared  down  the  further  slope. 

Mr  Oliphant  might  go  where  he  pleased,  but 
my  business  was  with  my  friend.  I  caught  Lad- 
law  by  the  shoulder  and  shook  him  fiercely. 
Then  I  pulled  him  to  his  feet,  let  him  go,  and  he 
rolled  over.  The  sight  was  so  comic  that  I  went 
into  a  fit  of  nervous  laughter;  but  the  shock 
seemed  to  have  restored  his  wits,  for  he  opened 
sleepy  eyes  and  regarded  me  solemnly.  I  do  not 
propose  to  analyse  my  reasons,  but  I  was  con- 
scious that  it  was  the  old  Ladlaw  who  was  look- 
ing at  me.  I  knew  he  was  healed  of  his  malady, 
but  how  I  knew  it  I  do  not  know.  He  stuck  both 
fists  into  his  eyes  like  a  sleepy  child.  Then  he 
yawned,  and  looked  down  ruefully  at  soaked, 
soiled,  and  ragged  clothing.  Then  he  looked 
reproachfully  at  me. 

'What's  up?"  he  asked.  "Stop  that  hideous 
row  and  tell  me  what  has  happened.  Have  I 
had  an  accident?" 

Then  I  spoke  cunningly.  "Nothing  much. 
A  little  bit  of  a  fall,  but  you'll  be  all  right  soon, 

198 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

Why,  you  look  better  already."    And  again  I 
went  into  a  fit  of  laughter. 

He  grew  wholesomely  cross.  "Oh,  don't  be 
a  confounded  jackass!"  he  cried.  "I  feel  as  if  I 
hadn't  slept  for  a  week,  and  I'm  hungry  and 
thirsty." 

He  swallowed  the  contents  of  my  flask,  and 
wolfed  my  sandwiches  in  a  disgusting  way. 
Then  he  proposed  that  we  should  go  home. 
"I'm  tired,  and  I'm  sick  of  shooting  for  the  day. 
By  the  bye,  where's  my  gun?"  ^ 

"Broken,"  I  said,  "broken  in  the  fall.    The 
keeper  is  going  to  look  after  it."    And  with  the 
aid  of  my  arm  he  began  with  feeble  steps  his 
homeward  journey. 
•  •••••  • 

The  minister — this  is  the  tale  of  Robert  Tod 
and  his  colleagues — ran  down  the  precipitous 
part  of  Mossrigging  like  a  thing  inspired.  Tod, 
labouring  heavily  in  his  wake,  declared  that  he 
went  down  the  hillside  like  a  loose  stone,  slip- 
ping, stumbling,  yet  never  altogether  losing  his 
feet,  and  clearing  dangers  solely  by  the  grace  of 
God.  As  he  went,  said  the  men,  he  made 
clutches  at  the  air,  and  his  face  was  the  face  of 
or.  2  distraught.  They  ran  together  from  their 
different  places  to  intercept  him  on  the  edge 

199 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

of  the  bog,  for  at  first  they  thought  he  was  Lad- 
law.  When  they  saw  their  mistake  they  did  not 
stop,  for  Tod  was  making  frantic  signals  for  pur- 
suit. John  Ker,  the  More  keeper,  was  nearest, 
and  he  declared  afterwards  that  he  never  ap- 
proached a  business  so  unwillingly.  ^'I  wad  hae 
grippit  a  wild  stot  or  a  daft  staig  suner  nor  yon 
man,"  he  said.  But  the  business  was  too  public 
for  sheer  cowardice.  John  assaulted  him  on  the 
left  flank  while  the  other  attacked  in  front,  and 
John  was  bowled  over  like  a  ninepin.  It  was 
not  the  minister,  he  said,  but  something  else, 
.Something  with  an  arm  two  yards  long,  which 
flew  out  like  a  steam-hammer.  But  the  others 
were  more  fortunate.  One  caught  Mr  Oli- 
phant's  right  arm,  another  hung  on  to  the  flaps 
of  his  coat,  while  a  third  tripped  him  up  gal- 
lantly, till  the  whole  body  of  them  rolled  on  the 
ground.  Then  ensued  an  indescribable  fray. 
Tod  got  a  black  eye  from  some  unknown  source, 
and  one  of  the  boys  lost  several  front  teeth. 
Howls  of  rage  filled  the  moorland  air,  and  all 
the  while,  they  declared,  the  minister  was  pray- 
ing with  an  unction  which  was  never  heard  in  the 
kirk.  "Lord,  give  me  peace!"  he  cried.  "Lord, 
take  the  thing  away!"  and  then  again,  "Get  thee 
behind  me,  Satan!" 

200 


^1 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

The  end  came  very  suddenly,  for  the  company 
rolled  into  the  bog.  The  minister,  being  lowest, 
saved  the  others,  but  he  floundered  in  the  green 
slime  up  to  his  middle.  The  accident  seemed  to 
inspire  sobriety.  He  ceased  his  prayers,  his  face 
lost  its  horror,  and  took  on  a  common  human 
fear.  Then  Tod  and  his  friends  laboured 
heroically  to  rescue  him,  and  all  the  while,  they 
declared,  something  was  pommelling  them  and 
bruising  them,  and  they  showed  for  long  black 
marks  on  their  bodies.  Slowly  they  raised  Mr 
Oliphant  from  the  slough,  and  on  a  bridge  of 
coats  he  crept  back  to  solid  land.  And  then 
something  happened  which  was  the  crowning 
marvel  of  the  business.  It  was  a  still  sharp  day; 
but  suddenly  there  came  a  wind,  hot  and  harsh, 
and  like  nothing  they  had  ever  known.  It  stung 
them  like  nettles,  played  for  a  moment  in  their 
midst,  and  then  in  a  kind  of  visible  cloud  passed 
away  from  them  over  the  bog  in  the  direction  of 
the  Red  Loch.  And  with  the  wind  went  the 
Thing  which  had  so  long  played  havoc  in  the 
place ;  and  the  men  were  left  with  an  unkempt 
figure,  coated  with  slime  and  shivering  with 
fright,  but  once  more  the  sane  and  prosaic  Mr 
Oliphant,  the  minister  of  the  parish  of  More. 


201 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

We  got  Ladlaw  and  the  minister  back  to  the 
house  with  much  trouble,  for  both  were  weak  on 
their  legs,  and  one  was  still  in  a  pitiable  fright. 
The  two  kept  eyeing  each  other,  one  with  a  sort 
of  disgusted  amusement,  the  other  with  a 
wondering  fear.  The  shepherds  were  mystified ; 
but  they  were  matter-of-fact  beings,  who,  hav- 
ing fulfilled  their  orders,  gave  no  more  thought 
to  the  business.  The  wounded  nursed  their 
bruises  and  swore  cheerfully,  and  the  boy  with 
the  broken  teeth  whistled  his  complaints.  A 
good  dinner  restored  them  to  humour,  and  the 
last  I  saw  was  Ker  and  Tod  going  over  the  Odys- 
sey of  their  adventures  to  a  circle  of  critical  spec- 
tators. 

When  Ladlaw  and  the  minister  had  washed 
and  fed,  and  sat  smoking  in  the  library,  I  went 
to  talk  to  Sybil.  I  have  often  wondered  how 
much  she  understood.  At  any  rate  she  took  my 
word  that  the  trouble  had  passed,  and  in  a  fit 
of  teai:s  thanked  me  for  my  labours.  Then  she 
said  she  would  go  to  her  husband,  and  I  led  her 
to  the  library,  where  the  two  heroes  were  smok- 
ing the  pipe  of  peace. 

Ladlaw  greeted  her  cheerily  as  if  nothing  had 
happened.  ^'I  feel  a  bit  shaken,"  he  said,  ^'but 
I'll  be  all  right  after  a  night's  rest.    You  needn't 

202 


4 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

be  nervous,  Sib.  By  the  bye,  Harry,  where's 
that  gun?" 

Then  he  wandered  round  the  room,  casting  an 
unfriendly  eye  on  his  new  acquisitions.  ^Xook 
here!  Somebody  has  been  playing  the  fool  in 
this  place.  I  can't  see  a  single  Badminton,  and 
where  did  this  stuff  come  from?"  And  he 
tapped  a  row  of  books  in  old  vellum.  ^'I  never 
remember  the  things  before.  StAdelbert!  Who 
on  earth  was  he?  Why,  any  one  who  came  in 
suddenly  and  did  not  know  me  might  thing  I 
was  a  minor  poet.  I  wish  youM  tell  Harrison  to 
clear  all  this  truck  away." 

The  minister  sat  by  the  fire  and  said  nothing. 
The  marvellous  had  intruded  upon  his  easy  life 
and  spoiled  the  balance.  I  was  sorry  for  the 
man  as  I  thanked  him  in  a  low  tone  and  asked 
how  he  felt. 

The  words  came  from  between  chattering 
teeth. 

"I  am  getting  b-better,"  he  said,  "but  I  have 
had  a  terrible  sh-shock. — I  am  a  Christian  man 
and  I  have  been  tempted.  I  thought  we  lived  in 
a  progressive  age,  but  now  I  know  that  we 
d-d-don't.  And  I  am  going  to  write  to  Dr  Rin- 
toul." 


203 


IV 

THE  OUTGOING  OF  THE  TIDE  ^ 

mm  3 
"Between  the  hours  of  twelve  and  one,  even  at  the        SI 

turning  of  the  tide. 

MEN  come  from  distant  parts  to  admire  the 
tides  of  Solloway,  which  race  in  at  flood 
and  retreat  at  ebb  with  a  greater  speed  than  a 
horse  can  follow.  But  nowhere  are  there 
queerer  waters  than  in  our  own  parish  of  Caulds 
at  the  place  called  the  Sker  Bay,  where  be- 
tween two  horns  of  land  a  shallow  estuary  re- 
ceives the  stream  of  the  Sker.  I  never  daunder 
by  its  shores,  and  see  the  waters  hurrying  like 
messengers  from  the  great  deep,  without  solemn 
thoughts  and  a  memory  of  Scripture  words  on 
the  terror  of  the  sea.  The  vast  Atlantic  may  be 
fearful  in  its  wrath,  but  with  us  it  is  no  clean 

^  From  the  unpublished  remains  of  the  Reverend  John 
Dennistoun,  sometime  minister  of  the  Gospel  in  the  parish 
of  Caulds,  and  author  of  'Satan's  Artifices  against  the 
Elect.' 

204 


THE  OUTGOING  OF  THE  TIDE 

open  rage,  but  the  deceit  of  the  creature,  the  un- 
holy ways  of  quicksands  when  the  waters  are 
gone,  and  their  stealthy  return  like  a  thief  in  the 
night-watches.  But  in  the  times  of  which  I  write 
there  were  more  awful  fears  than  any  from  the 
violence  of  nature.  It  was  before  the  day  of 
my  ministry  in  Caulds,  for  then  I  was  a  bit  cal- 
lant  in  short  clothes  in  my  native  parish  of 
Lesmahagow;  but  the  worthy  Doctor  Chrystal, 
who  had  charge  of  spiritual  things,  has  told  me 
often  of  the  power  of  Satan  and  his  emissaries 
in  that  lonely  place.  It  was  the  day  of  warlocks 
and  apparitions,  now  happily  driven  out  by  the 
zeal  of  the  General  Assembly.  Witches  pur- 
sued their  wanchancy  calling,  bairns  were 
spirited  away,  young  lassies  selled  their  souls  to 
the  evil  one,  and  the  accuser  of  the  brethren  in 
the  shape  of  a  black  tyke  was  seen  about  cottage- 
doors  in  the  gloaming.  Many  and  earnest  were 
the  prayers  of  good  Doctor  Chrystal,  but  the  evil 
thing,  in  spite  of  his  wrestling,  grew  and 
flourished  in  his  midst.  The  parish  stank  of 
idolatry,  abominable  rites  were  practised  in 
secret,  and  in  all  the  bounds  there  was  no  one 
had  a  more  evil  name  for  this  black  traffic  than 
one  Alison  Sempill,  who  bode  at  the  Skerburn- 
foot. 

205 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

The  cottage  stood  nigh  the  burn  in  a  little 
garden  with  lilyoaks  and  grosart-bushes  lining 
the  pathway.  The  Sker  ran  by  in  a  linn  among 
hollins,  and  the  noise  of  its  waters  was  ever 
about  the  place.  The  highroad  on  the  other  side 
was  frequented  by  few,  for  a  nearer-hand  way  to 
the  west  had  been  made  through  the  Lowe  Moss. 
Sometimes  a  herd  from  the  hills  would  pass  by 
with  sheep,  sometimes  a  tinkler  or  a  wandering 
merchant,  and  once  in  a  long  while  the  laird  of 
Heriotside  on  his  grey  horse  riding  to  Gleds- 
muir.  And  they  who  passed  would  see  Alison 
Hirpling  in  her  garden,  speaking  to  herself  like 
the  ill  wife  she  was,  or  sitting  on  a  cuttystool  by 
the  doorside  with  her  eyes  on  other  than  mortal 
sights.  Where  she  came  from  no  man  could  tell. 
There  were  some  said  she  was  no  woman,  but  a 
ghost  haunting  some  mortal  tenement.  Others 
would  threep  she  was  gentrice,  come  of  a  perse- 
cuting family  in  the  west,  that  had  been  ruined 
in  the  Revolution  wars.  She  never  seemed  to 
want  for  siller;  the  house  was  as  bright  as  a  new 
preen,  the  yaird  better  delved  than  the  manse 
garden;  and  there  was  routh  of  fowls  and  doos 
about  the  small  steading,  forbye  a  wheen  sheep 
and  milk-kye  in  the  fields.  No  man  ever  saw 
Alison  at  any  market  in  the  countryside,  and  yet 

206 


I 


THE  OUTGOING  OF  THE  TIDE 

the  Skerburnfoot  was  plenished  yearly  in  all 
proper  order.  One  man  only  worked  on  the 
place,  a  doited  lad  who  had  long  been  a  charge  to 
the  parish,  and  who  had  not  the  sense  to  fear 
danger  or  the  wit  to  understand  it.  Upon  all 
other  the  sight  of  Alison,  were  it  but  for  a  mo- 
ment, cast  a  cold  grue,  not  to  be  remembered 
without  terror.  It  seems  she  was  not  ordinarily 
ill-f  aured,  as  men  use  the  word.  She  was  maybe 
sixty  years  in  age,  small  and  trig,  with  her  grey 
hair  folded  neatly  under  her  mutch.  But  the 
sight  of  her  eyes  was  not  a  thing  to  forget.  John 
Dodds  said  they  were  the  een  of  a  deer  with  the 
devil  ahint  them,  and  indeed  they  would  so  ap- 
pal an  onlooker  that  a  sudden  unreasoning  ter- 
ror came  into  his  heart,  while  his  feet  would  im- 
pel him  to  flight.  Once  John,  being  overtaken  in 
drink  on  the  roadside  by  the  cottage,  and  dream- 
ing that  he  was  burning  in  hell,  woke,  and  saw 
the  old  wife  hobbling  towards  him.  Thereupon 
he  fled  soberly  to  the  hills,  and  from  that  day 
became  a  quiet-living  humble-minded  Christian. 
She  moved  about  the  country  like  a  wraith, 
gathering  herbs  in  dark  loanings,  lingering  in 
kirkyairds,  and  casting  a  blight  on  innocent 
bairns.  Once  Robert  Smillie  found  her  in  a 
ruinous  kirk  on  the  Lang  Muir  where  of  old  the 
^  207  . 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

idolatrous  rites  of  Rome  were  practised.  It  was 
a  hot  day,  and  in  the  quiet  place  the  flies  buzzed 
in  crowds,  and  he  noted  that  she  sat  clothed  in 
them  as  with  a  garment,  yet  suffering  no  discom- 
fort. Then  he,  having  mind  of  Beelzebub,  the 
god  of  flies,  fled  without  a  halt  homewards;  but, 
falling  in  the  Coo's  Loan,  broke  two  ribs  and  a 
collar-bone,  the  whilk  misfortune  was  much 
blessed  to  his  soul.  And  there  were  darker  tales 
in  the  countryside,  of  weans  stolen,  of  lassies  mis- 
guided, of  innocent  beasts  cruelly  tortured,  and 
in  one  and  all  there  came  in  the  name  of  the 
wife  of  the  Skerburnfoot.  It  was  noted  by 
them  that  kenned  best  that  her  cantrips  were  at 
their  worst  when  the  tides  in  the  Sker  Bay  ebbed 
between  the  hours  of  twelve  and  one.  At  this 
season  of  the  night  the  tides  of  mortality  run 
lowest,  and  when  the  outgoing  of  these  unco 
waters  fell  in  with  the  setting  of  the  current  of 
life,  then  indeed  was  the  hour  for  unholy  revels. 
While  honest  men  slept  in  their  beds,  the  auld 
rudas  carlines  took  their  pleasure.  That  there 
is  a  delight  in  sin  no  man  denies,  but  to  most  it 
is  but  a  broken  glint  in  the  pauses  of  their  con- 
science. But  what  must  be  the  hellish  joy  of 
those  lost  beings  who  have  forsworn  God  and 
trysted  with  the  Prince  of  Darkness,  it  is  not  for 

208  J I 


THE  OUTGOING  OF  THE  TIDE 

a  Christian  to  say.  Certain  it  is  that  it  must  be 
great,  though  their  master  waits  at  the  end  of  the 
road  to  claim  the  wizened  things  they  call  their 
souls.  Serious  men,  notably  Gidden  Scott  in  the 
Back  of  the  Hill  and  Simon  Wauch  in  the  Sheil- 
ing  of  Chasehope,  have  seen  Alison  wandering 
on  the  wet  sands,  dancing  to  no  earthly  music, 
while  the  heavens,  they  said,  were  full  of  lights 
and  sounds  which  betokened  the  presence  of  the 
prince  of  the  powers  of  the  air.  It  was  a  season 
of  heart-searching  for  God's  saints  in  Caulds, 
and  the  dispensation  was  blessed  to  not  a  few. 

It  will  seem  strange  that  in  all  this  time  the 
presbytery  was  idle,  and  no  effort  was  made  to 
rid  the  place  of  so  fell  an  influence.  But  there 
was  a  reason,  and  the  reason,  as  in  most  like  cases, 
was  a  lassie.  Forbye  Alison  there  lived  at  the 
Skerburnfoot  a  young  maid,  Ailie  Sempill,  who 
by  all  accounts  was  as  good  and  bonnie  as  the 
other  was  evil.  She  passed  for  a  daughter  of 
Alison's,  whether  born  in  wedlock  or  not  I  can- 
not tell ;  but  there  were  some  said  she  was  no  kin 
to  the  auld  witch-wife,  but  some  bairn  spirited 
away  from  honest  parents.  She  was  young  and 
blithe,  with  a  face  like  an  April  morning  and  a 
voice  in  her  that  put  the  laverocks  to  shame. 
When  she  sang  in  the  kirk  folk  have  told  me  that 

209 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

they  had  a  foretaste  of  the  music  of  the  New 
Jerusalem,  and  when  she  came  in  by  the  village 
of  Caulds  old  men  stottered  to  their  doors  to  look 
at  her.  Moreover,  from  her  earliest  days  the 
bairn  had  some  glimmerings  of  grace.  Though 
no  minister  would  visit  the  Skerburnfoot,  or  if 
he  went,  departed  quicker  than  he  came,  the 
girl  Ailie  attended  regular  at  the  catechising 
at  the  Mains  of  Sker.  It  may  be  that  Alison 
thought  she  would  be  a  better  offering  for  the 
devil  if  she  were  given  the  chance  of  forswearing 
God,  or  it  may  be  that  she  was  so  occupied  in  her 
own  dark  business  that  she  had  no  care  of  the 
bairn.  Meanwhile  the  lass  grew  up  in  the  nur- 
ture and  admonition  of  the  Lord.  I  have  heard 
Doctor  Chrystal  say  that  he  never  had  a  commu- 
nicant more  full  of  the  things  of  the  Spirit. 
From  the  day  when  she  first  declared  her  wish  to 
come  forward  to  the  hour  when  she  broke  bread 
at  the  table,  she  walked  like  one  in  a  dream.  The 
lads  of  the  parish  might  cast  admiring  eyes  on 
her  bright  cheeks  and  yellow  hair  as  she  sat  in 
her  white  gown  in  the  kirk,  but  well  they  knew 
she  was  not  for  them.  To  be  the  bride  of  Christ 
was  the  thought  that  filled  her  heart;  and  when 
at  the  fencing  of  the  tables  Doctor  Chrystal 
preached  from  Matthew  nine  and  fifteen,  ^^Can 

2IO 


THE  OUTGOING  OF  THE  TIDE 

the  children  of  the  bride-chamber  mourn,  as 
long  as  the  bridegroom  is  with  them?"  it  was  re- 
marked by  sundry  that  Ailie's  face  was  liker  the 
countenance  of  an  angel  than  of  a  mortal  lass. 

It  is  with  the  day  of  her  first  communion  that 
this  narrative  of  mine  begins.  As  she  walked 
home  after  the  morning  table  she  communed  in 
secret  and  her  heart  sank  within  her.  She  had 
mind  of  God's  mercies  in  the  past,  how  He  had 
kept  her  feet  from  the  snares  of  evil-doers  which 
had  been  spread  around  her  youth.  She  had 
been  told  unholy  charms  like  the  seven  south 
streams  and  the  nine  rowan  berries,  and  it  was 
noted  when  she  went  first  to  the  catechising  that 
she  prayed  "Our  Father  which  wert  in  heaven, '^ 
the  prayer  which  the  ill  wife  Alison  had  taught 
her,  meaning  by  it  Lucifer  who  had  been  in 
heaven  and  had  been  cast  out  therefrom.  But 
when  she  had  come  to  years  of  discretion  she  had 
freely  chosen  the  better  part,  and  evil  had  ever 
been  repelled  from  her  soul  like  Gled  water 
from  the  stones  of  Gled  brig.  Now  she  was  in 
a  rapture  of  holy  content.  The  drucken  bell — 
for  the  ungodly  fashion  lingered  in  Caulds — 
was  ringing  in  her  ears  as  she  left  the  village,  but 
to  her  it  was  but  a  kirk-bell  and  a  goodly  sound. 
As  she  went  through  the  woods  where  the  prim- 

211 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

roses  and  the  whitethorn  were  blossoming,  the 
place  seemed  as  the  land  of  Elam,  wherein 
there  were  twelve  wells  and  threescore  and  ten 
palm-trees.  And  then,  as  it  might  be,  another 
thought  came  into  her  head,  for  it  is  ordained 
that  frail  mortality  cannot  long  continue  in  holy- 
joy.  In  the  kirk  she  had  been  only  the  bride  of 
Christ;  but  as  she  came  through  the  wood,  with 
the  birds  lilting  and  the  winds  of  the  world 
blowing,  she  had  mind  of  another  lover.  For 
this  lass,  though  so  cold  to  men,  had  not  escaped 
the  common  fate.  It  seemed  that  the  young 
Heriotside,  riding  by  one  day,  stopped  to  speir 
something  or  other,  and  got  a  glisk  of  Ailie's 
face,  which  caught  his  fancy.  He  passed  the 
road  again  many  times,  and  then  he  would  meet 
her  in  the  gloaming  or  of  a  morning  in  the 
field  as  she  went  to  fetch  the  kye.  "Blue  are 
the  hills  that  are  far  away"  is  an  owercome  in 
the  countryside,  and  while  at  first  on  his  side  it 
may  have  been  but  a  young  man's  fancy,  to  her 
he  was  like  the  god  Apollo  descending  from  the 
skies.  He  was  good  to  look  on,  brawly  dressed, 
and  with  a  tongue  in  his  head  that  would  have 
wiled  the  bird  from  the  tree.  Moreover,  he  was 
of  gentle  kin,  and  she  was  a  poor  lass  biding  in 
a  cot-house  with  an  ill-reputed  mother.    It  seems 

212 


THE  OUTGOING  OF  THE  TIDE 

that  in  time  the  young  man,  who  had  begun  the 
affair  with  no  good  intentions,  fell  honestly  in 
love,  while  she  went  singing  about  the  doors  as 
innocent  as  a  bairn,  thinking  of  him  when  her 
thoughts  were  not  on  higher  things.  So  it  came 
about  that  long  ere  Ailie  reached  home  it  was 
on  young  Heriotside  that  her  mind  dwelt,  and  it 
was  the  love  of  him  that  made  her  eyes  glow  and 
her  cheeks  redden. 

Now  it  chanced  that  at  that  very  hour  her  mas- 
ter had  been  with  Alison,  and  the  pair  of  them 
were  preparing  a  deadly  pit.  Let  no  man  say 
that  the  devil  is  not  a  cruel  tyrant.  He  may  give 
his  folk  some  scrapings  of  unhallowed  pleasure; 
but  he  will  exact  tithes,  yea  of  anise  and  cum- 
min, in  return,  and  there  is  aye  the  reckoning  to 
pay  at  the  hinder  end.  It  seems  that  now  he  was 
driving  Alison  hard.  She  had  been  remiss  of 
late,  fewer  souls  sent  to  hell,  less  zeal  in  quench- 
ing the  Spirit,  and  above  all  the  crowning  of- 
fence that  her  bairn  had  communicated  in 
Christ's  kirk.  She  had  waited  overlong,  and  now 
it  was  like  that  Ailie  would  escape  her  toils.  I 
have  no  skill  of  fancy  to  tell  of  that  dark  col- 
logue, but  the  upshot  was  that  Alison  swore  by 
her  lost  soul  and  the  pride  of  sin  to  bring  the  lass 
into  thrall  to  her  master.    The  fiend  had  bare 

213 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

departed  when  Ailie  came  over  the  threshold  to 
find  the  auld  carline  glunching  by  the  fire. 

It  was  plain  she  was  in  the  worst  of  tempers. 
She  flyted  on  the  lass  till  the  poor  thing's  cheek 
paled.  "There  you  gang/'  she  cried,  "troking 
wi'  thae  wearifu'  Pharisees  o'  Caulds,  whae 
daurna  darken  your  mither's  door.  A  bonnie 
dutiful  child,  quotha!  Wumman,  ha  ye  nae 
pride? — no  even  the  mense  o'  a  tinkler-lass?" 
And  then  she  changed  her  voice,  and  would  be 
as  soft  as  honey.  "My  puir  wee  Ailie!  was  I 
thrawn  till  ye?  Never  mind,  my  bonnie.  You 
and  me  are  a'  that's  left,  and  we  maunna  be  ill 
to  ither."  And  then  the  two  had  their  dinner, 
and  all  the  while  the  auld  wife  was  crooning 
over  the  lass.  "We  maun  'gree  weel,"  she  says, 
"for  we're  like  to  be  our  lee-lane  for  the  rest  o' 
our  days.  They  tell  me  Heriotside  is  seeking 
Joan  o'  the  Croft,  and  they're  sune  to  be  cried  in 
Gledsmuir  kirk." 

It  was  the  first,the  lass  had  heard  of  it,  and  you 
may  fancy  she  was  struck  dumb.  And  so  with 
one  thing  and  other  the  auld  witch  raised  the 
fiends  of  jealousy  in  that  innocent  heart.  She 
would  cry  out  that  Heriotside  was  an  ill-doing 
wastrel,  and  had  no  business  to  come  and  flatter 
honest  lasses.    And  then  she  would  speak  of  his 

214 


THE  OUTGOING  OF  THE  TIDE 

gentle  birth  and  his  leddy  mother,  and  say  it  was 
indeed  presumption  to  hope  that  so  great  a 
gentleman  could  mean  all  that  he  said.  Before 
long  Ailie  was  silent  and  white,  while  her 
mother  rhymed  on  about  men  and  their  ways. 
And  then  she  could  thole  it  no  longer,  but  must 
go  out  and  walk  by  the  burn  to  cool  her  hot  brow 
and  calm  her  thoughts,  while  the  witch  indoors 
laughed  to  herself  at  her  devices. 

For  days  Ailie  had  an  absent  eye  and  a  sad 
face,  and  it  so  fell  out  that  in  all  that  time 
young  Heriotside,  who  had  scarce  missed  a  day, 
was  laid  up  with  a  broken  arm  and  never  came 
near  her.  So  in  a  week's  time  she  was  beginning 
to  hearken  to  her  mother  when  she  spoke  of  in- 
cantations and  charms  for  restoring  love.  She 
kenned  it  was  sin;  but  though  not  seven  days 
syne  she  had  sat  at  the  Lord's  table,  so  strong 
is  love  in  a  young  heart  that  she  was  on  the  very 
brink  of  it.  But  the  grace  of  God  was  stronger 
than  her  weak  will.  She  would  have  none  of 
her  mother's  runes  and  philters,  though  her  soul 
cried  out  for  them.  Always  when  she  was  most 
disposed  to  listen  some  merciful  power  stayed 
her  consent.  Alison  grew  thrawner  as  the  hours 
passed.  She  kenned  of  Heriotside's  broken  arm, 
and  she  feared  that  any  day  he  might  recover  and 

215 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

put  her  stratagems  to  shame.  And  then  it  seems 
that  she  collogued  with  her  master  and  heard 
word  of  a  subtler  device.  For  it  was  approach- 
ing that  uncanny  time  of  year,  the  festival  of 
Beltane,  when  the  auld  pagans  were  wont  to  sac- 
rifice to  their  god  Baal.  In  this  season  warlocks 
and  carlines  have  a  special  dispensation  to  do 
evil,  and  Alison  waited  on  its  coming  with  grace- 
less joy.  As  it  happened,  the  tides  in  the  Sker 
Bay  ebbed  at  this  time  between  the  hours  of 
twelve  and  one,  and,  as  I  have  said,  this  was  the 
hour  above  all  others  when  the  powers  of  dark- 
ness were  most  potent.  Would  the  lass  but  con- 
sent to  go  abroad  in  the  unhallowed  place  at  this 
awful  season  and  hour  of  the  night,  she  was  as 
firmly  handfasted  to  the  devil  as  if  she  had 
signed  a  bond  with  her  own  blood.  For  there, 
it  seemed,  the  forces  of  good  fled  far  away,  the 
world  for  one  hour  was  given  over  to  its  ancient 
prince,  and  the  man  or  woman  who  willingly 
sought  the  spot  was  his  bond-servant  for  ever. 
There  are  deadly  sins  from  which  God's  people 
may  recover.  A  man  may  even  communicate 
unworthily,  and  yet,  so  be  it  he  sin  not  against 
the  Holy  Ghost,  he  may  find  forgiveness.  But 
it  seems  that  for  this  Beltane  sin  there  could  be 
no  pardon,  and  I  can  testify  from  my  own  knowl- 

216 


THE  OUTGOING  OF  THE  TIDE 

edge  that  they  who  once  committed  it  became 
lost  souls  from  that  day.  James  Deuchar,  once 
a  promising  professor,  fell  thus  out  of  sinful 
bravery  and  died  blaspheming;  and  of  Kate 
Mallison,  who  went  the  same  road,  no  man  can 
tell.  Here,  indeed,  was  the  witch-wife's  chance, 
and  she  was  the  more  keen,  for  her  master  had 
warned  her  that  this  was  her  last  chance.  Either 
Ailie's  soul  would  be  his,  or  her  auld  wrinkled 
body  and  black  heart  would  be  flung  from  this 
pleasant  world  to  their  apportioned  place. 

Some  days  later  it  happened  that  young 
Heriotside  was  stepping  home  over  the  Lang 
Muir  about  ten  at  night — it  being  his  first  jaunt 
from  home  since  his  arm  had  mended.  He  had 
been  to  the  supper  of  the  Forest  Club  at  the 
Cross  Keys  in  Gledsmuir,  a  clamjamfry  of  wild 
young  blades  who  passed  the  wine  and  played 
at  cartes  once  a-fortnight.  It  seems  he  had 
drunk  well,  so  that  the  world  ran  round  about 
and  he  was  in  the  best  of  tempers.  The  moon 
came  down  and  bowed  to  him,  and  he  took  off 
his  hat  to  it.  For  every  step  he  travelled  miles, 
so  that  in  a  little  he  was  beyond  Scotland  al- 
together and  pacing  the  Arabian  desert.  He 
thought  he  was  the  Pope  of  Rome,  so  he  held 
out  his  foot  to  be  kissed,  and  rolled  twenty  yards 

217 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

to  the  bottom  of  a  small  brae.  Syne  he  was  the 
King  of  France,  and  fought  hard  with  a  whin- 
bush  till  he  had  banged  it  to  pieces.  After  that 
nothing  would  content  him  but  he  must  be  a 
bogle,  for  he  found  his  head  dunting  on  the  stars 
and  his  legs  were  knocking  the  hills  together. 
He  thought  of  the  mischief  he  was  doing  to  the 
auld  earth,  and  sat  down  and  cried  at  his  wicked- 
ness. Then  he  went  on,  and  maybe  the  steep 
road  to  the  Moss  Rig  helped  him,  for  he  be- 
gan to  get  soberer  and  ken  his  whereabouts. 

On  a  sudden  he  was  aware  of  a  man  linking 
along  at  his  side.  He  cried  "A  fine  night,"  and 
the  man  replied.  Syne,  being  merry  from  his 
cups,  he  tried  to  slap  him  on  the  back.  The  next 
he  kenned  he  was  rolling  on  the  grass,  for  his 
hand  had  gone  clean  through  the  body  and  found 
nothing  but  air. 

His  head  was  so  thick  with  wine  that  he  found 
nothing  droll  in  this.  "Faith,  friend,"  he  says, 
"that  was  a  nasty  fall  for  a  fellow  that  has 
supped  weel.  Where  might  your  road  be  gaun 
to?" 

"To  the  World's  End,"  said  the  man;  "but 
I  stop  at  the  Skerburnfoot." 

"Bide  the  night  at  Heriotside,"  says  he.  "It's 
218 


THE  OUTGOING  OF  THE  TIDE 

a  thought  out  of  your  way,  but  it's  a  comfortable 
bit." 

^'There's  mair  comfort  at  the  Skerburnfoot," 
said  the  dark  man. 

Now  the  mention  of  the  Skerburnfoot  brought 
back  to  him  only  the  thought  of  Ailie  and  not 
of  the  witch-wife,  her  mother.  So  he  jaloused 
no  ill,  for  at  the  best  he  was  slow  in  the  uptake. 

The  two  of  them  went  on  together  for  a  while, 
Hefiotside's  fool  head  filled  with  the  thought  of 
the  lass.  Then  the  dark  man  broke  silence. 
^^Ye're  thinkin'  o'  the  maid  Ailie  Sempill,"  says 
he. 

"How  ken  ye  that?"  asked  Heriotside. 

"It  is  my  business  to  read  the  herts  o'  men," 
said  the  other. 

"And  who  may  ye  be?"  said  Heriotside,  grow- 
ing eerie. 

"Just  an  auld  packman,"  said  he — "nae  name 
ye  wad  ken,  but  kin  to  mony  gentle  houses." 

"And  what  about  Ailie,  you  that  ken  sae 
muckle?"  asked  the  young  man. 

"Naething,"  was  the  answer — "naething  that 
concerns  you,  for  ye'll  never  get  the  lass." 

"By  God,  and  I  will!"  says  Heriotside,  for  he 
was  a  profane  swearer.  \ 

219 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

"That's  the  wrong  name  to  seek  her  in,  any 
way/'  said  the  man. 

At  this  the  young  laird  struck  a  great  blow  at 
him  with  his  stick,  but  found  nothing  to  resist 
him  but  the  hill-wind. 

When  they  had  gone  on  a  bit  the  dark  man 
spoke  again.  "The  lassie  is  thirled  to  holy 
things,"  says  he.  "She  has  nae  care  for  flesh  and 
blood,  only  for  devout  contemplation." 

"She  loves  me,"  says  Heriotside. 

"Not  you,"  says  the  other,  "but  a  shadow  in 
your  stead." 

At  this  the  young  man's  heart  began  to 
tremble,  for  it  seemed  that  there  was  truth  in 
what  his  companion  said,  and  he  was  ower  drunk 
to  think  gravely. 

"I  kenna  whatna  man  ye  are,"  he  says,  "but  ye 
have  the  skill  of  lassies'  hearts.  Tell  me  truly, 
is  there  no  way  to  win  her  to  common  love?" 

"One  way  there  is,"  said  the  man,  "and  for 
our  friendship's  sake  I  will  tell  it  you.  If  ye 
can  ever  tryst  wi'  her  on  Beltane's  Eve  on  the 
Sker  sands,  at  the  green  link  o'  the  burn  where 
the  sands  begin,  on  the  ebb  o'  the  tide  when  the 
midnight  is  bye  but  afore  cockcrow,  she'll  be 
yours,  body  and  soul,  for  this  world  and  for 
ever." 

220 


THE  OUTGOING  OF  THE  TIDE 

And  then  it  appeared  to  the  young  man  that 
he  was  walking  his  lone  up  the  grass  walk  of 
Hcriotside  with  the  house  close  by  him.  He 
thought  no  more  of  the  stranger  he  had  met,  but 
the  word  stuck  in  his  heart. 

It  seems  that  about  this  very  time  Alison  was 
telling  the  same  tale  to  poor  Ailie.  She  cast  up 
to  her  every  idle  gossip  she  could  think  of.  ^'It's 
Joan  o'  the  Croft,"  was  aye  her  owercome,  and 
she  would  threep  that  they  were  to  be  cried  in 
ki]k  on  the  first  Sabbath  of  May.  And  then  she 
would  rhyme  on  about  the  black  cruelty  of  it, 
and  cry  down  curses  on  the  lover,  so  that  her 
daughter's  heart  grew  cauld  with  fear.  It  is 
teirible  to  think  of  the  power  of  the  world  even 
in  a  redeemed  soul.  Here  was  a  maid  who  had 
drunk  of  the  well  of  grace  and  tasted  of  God's 
mercies,  and  yet  there  were  moments  when  she 
was  ready  to  renounce  her  hope.  At  those  aw- 
ful seasons  God  seemed  far  off  and  the  world 
very  nigh,  and  to  sell  her  soul  for  love  looked  a 
fair  bargain.  At  other  times  she  would  resist  the 
devil  and  comfort  herself  with  prayer;  but  aye 
when  she  woke  there  was  the  sore  heart,  and 
when  she  went  to  sleep  there  were  the  weary  eyes. 
There  was  no  comfort  in  the  goodliness  of  spring 
or  the  bright  sunshine  weather,  and  she  who  had 

221 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

been  wont  to  go  about^the  doors  lightfoot  and 
blithe  was  now  as  dowie  as  a  widow  woman. 

And  then  one  afternoon  in  the  hinder  end  of 
April  came  young  Heriotside  riding  to  the  Sker- 
burnfoot.  His  arm  was  healed,  he  had  got  him  a 
fine  new  suit  of  green,  and  his  horse  was  a  mettle 
beast  that  well  set  off  his  figure.  Ailie  was 
standing  by  the  doorstep  as  he  came  down  the 
road,  and  her  heart  stood  still  with  joy.  But  a 
second  thought  gave  her  anguish.  This  man,  so 
gallant  and  braw,  would  never  be  for  her;  doubt- 
less the  fine  suit  and  the  capering  horse  were  for 
Joan  o'  the  Croft's  pleasure.  And  he  in  turn, 
when  he  remarked  her  wan  cheek  and  dowie 
eyes,  had  mind  of  what  the  dark  man  said  on  the 
muir,  and  saw  in  her  a  maid  sworn  to  no  mortal 
love.  Yet  the  passion  for  her  had  grown  fiercer 
than  ever,  and  he  swore  to  himself  that  he  would 
win  her  back  from  her  phantasies.  She,  one  may 
believe,  was  ready  enough  to  listen.  As  she 
walked  with  him  by  the  Sker  water  his  words 
were  like  music  to  her  ears,  and  Alison  within- 
doors laughed  to  herself  and  saw  her  devices 
prosper. 

He  spoke  to  her  of  love  and  his  own  heart,  and 
the  girl  hearkened  gladly.  Syne  he  rebuked  her 
coldness  and  cast  scorn  upon  her  piety,  and  so 

222 


THE  OUTGOING  OF  THE  TIDE 

far  was  she  beguiled  that  she  had  no  answer. 
Then  from  one  thing  and  another  he  spoke  of 
some  true  token  of  their  love.  He  said  he  was 
jealous,  and  craved  something  to  ease  his  care. 
"It's  but  a  small  thing  I  ask,"  says  he;  ''but  it 
will  make  me  a  happy  man,  and  nothing  ever 
shall  come  atween  us.  Tryst  wi'  me  for  Beltane's 
Eve  on  the  Sker  sands,  at  the  green  link  o'  the 
burn  where  the  sands  begin,  on  the  ebb  o'  the 
tide  when  midnight  is  bye  but  afore  cockcrow. 
For,"  said  he,  "that  was  our  forebears'  tryst  for 
true  lovers,  and  wherefore  no  for  you  and  me?" 
The  lassie  had  grace  given  her  to  refuse,  but 
with  a  woful  heart,  and  Heriotside  rode  off  in 
black  discontent,  leaving  poor  Ailie  to  sigh  her 
lone.  He  came  back  the  next  day  and  the  next, 
but  aye  he  got  the  same  answer.  A  season  of 
great  doubt  fell  upon  her  soul.  She  had  no 
clearness  in  her  hope,  nor  any  sense  of  God's 
promises.  The  Scriptures  were  an  idle  tale  to 
her,  prayer  brought  her  no  refreshment,  and  she 
was  convicted  in  her  conscience  of  the  unpardon- 
able sin.  Had  she  been  less  full  of  pride  she 
would  have  taken  her  troubles  to  good  Doctor 
Chrystal  and  got  comfort;  but  her  grief  made 
her  silent  and  timorous,  and  she  found  no  help 
anywhere.     Her  mother  was  ever  at  her  side, 

223 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 


•ivei 


seeking  with  coaxings  and  evil  advice  to  drive 
her  to  the  irrevocable  step.  And  all  the  while 
there  was  her  love  for  the  man  riving  in  her 
bosom  and  giving  her  no  ease  by  night  or  day. 
She  believed  she  had  driven  him  away  and  re- 
pented her  denial.  Only  her  pride  held  her 
back  from  going  to  Heriotside  and  seeking  him 
herself.  She  watched  the  road  hourly  for  a  sight 
of  his  face,  and  when  the  darkness  came  she 
Would  sit  in  a  corner  brooding  over  her  sorrows. 
At  last  he  came,  speiring  the  old  question. 
He  sought  the  same  tryst,  but  now  he  had  a  fur- 
ther tale.  It  seemed  he  was  eager  to  get  her 
away  from  the  Skerburnside  and  auld  Alison. 
His  aunt,  the  Lady  Balcrynie,  would  receive  her 
gladly  at  his  request  till  the  day  of  their  mar- 
riage. Let  her  but  tryst  with  him  at  the  hour 
and  place  he  named,  and  he  would  carry  her 
straight  to  Balcrynie,  where  she  would  be  safe 
and  happy.  He  named  that  hour,  he  said,  to  es- 
cape men's  observation  for  the  sake  of  her  own 
good  name.  He  named  that  place,  for  it  was 
near  her  dwelling,  and  on  the  road  between 
Balcrynie  and  Heriotside,  which  fords  the  Sker 
Burn.  The  temptation  was  more  than  mortal 
heart  could  resist.  She  gave  him  the  promise  he 
sought,  stifling  the  voice  of  conscience;  and  as 

224 


^1 


THE  OUTGOING  OF  THE  TIDE 

she  clung  to  his  neck  it  seemed  to  her  that  heaven 
was  a  poor  thing  compared  with  a  man's  love. 

Three  days  remained  till  Beltane's  Eve,  and 
throughout  the  time  it  was  noted  that  Heriot- 
side  behaved  like  one  possessed.  It  may  be  that 
his  conscience  pricked  him,  or  that  he  had  a 
glimpse  of  his  sin  and  its  coming  punishment. 
Certain  it  is  that,  if  he  had  been  daft  before,  he 
now  ran  wild  in  his  pranks,  and  an  evil  report 
of  him  was  in  every  mouth.  He  drank  deep  at 
the  Cross  Keys,  and  fought  two  battles  with 
young  lads  that  had  angered  him.  One  he  led 
off  with  a  touch  on  the  shoulder,  the  other  goes 
lame  to  this  day  from  a  wound  he  got  in  the 
groin.  There  was  word  of  the  procurator-fiscal 
taking  note  of  his  doings,  and  troth,  if  they  had 
continued  long  he  must  have  fled  the  country. 
For  a  wager  he  rode  his  horse  down  the  Dow 
Craig,  wherefore  the  name  of  the  place  is  the 
Horseman's  Craig  to  this  day.  He  laid  a  hun- 
dred guineas  with  the  laird  of  Slipperfield  that 
he  would  drive  four  horses  through  the  Slipper- 
field loch,  and  in  the  prank  he  had  his  bit  chariot 
dung  to  pieces  and  a  good  mare  killed.  And  all 
men  observed  that  his  eyes  were  wild  and  his 
face  grey  and  thin,  and  that  his  hand  would 

225 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

twitch  as  he  held  the  glass,  like  one  with  the 
palsy. 

The  eve  of  Beltane  was  lown  and  hot  in  the 
low  country,  with  fire  hanging  in  the  clouds  and 
thunder  grumbling  about  the  heavens.  It  seems 
that  up  in  the  hills  it  had  been  an  awesome  del- 
uge of  rain,  but  on  the  coast  it  was  still  dry  and 
lowering.  It  is  a  long  road  from  Heriotside 
to  the  Skerburnfoot.  First  you  go  down  the 
Heriot  Water,  and  syne  over  the  Lang  Muir 
to  the  edge  of  Mucklewhan.  When  you  pass 
the  steadings  of  Mirehope  and  Cockmalane  you 
turn  to  the  right  and  ford  the  Mire  Burn.  That 
brings  you  on  to  the  turnpike  road,  which  you 
will  ride  till  it  bends  inland,  while  you  keep  on 
straight  over  the  Whinny  Knowes  to  the  Sker 
Bay.  There,  if  you  are  in  luck,  you  will  find 
the  tide  out  and  the  place  fordable  dryshod  for 
a  man  on  a  horse.  But  if  the  tide  ruhs,  you  will 
do  well  to  sit  down  on  the  sands  and  content 
yourself  till  it  turn,  or  it  will  be  the  solans  and 
scarts  of  the  Solloway  that  will  be  seeing  the  next 
of  you.  On  this  Beltane's  Eve  the  young  man, 
after  supping  with  some  wild  young  blades,  bade 
his  horse  be  saddled  about  ten  o'clock.  The 
company  were  eager  to  ken  his  errand,  but  he 
waved  them  back.    "Bide  here,"  he  says,  "and 

226 


THE  OUTGOING  OF  THE  TIDE 

bill  the  wine  till  I  return.  This  is  a  ploy  of  my 
own  on  which  no  man  follows  me."  And  there 
was  that  in  his  face  as  he  spoke  which  chilled 
the  wildest,  and  left  them  well  content  to  keep 
to  the  good  claret  and  the  soft  seat  and  let  the 
daft  laird  go  his  own  ways. 

Well  and  on,  he  rode  down  the  bridle-path  in 
the  wood,  along  the  top  of  the  Heriot  glen,  and 
as  he  rode  he  was  aware  of  a  great  noise  beneath 
him.  It  was  not  wind,  for  there  was  none,  and 
it  was  not  the  sound  of  thunder,  and  aye  as  he 
speired  at  himself  what  it  was  it  grew  the  louder 
till  he  came  to  a  break  in  the  trees.  And  then 
he  saw  the  cause,  for  Heriot  was  coming  down 
in  a  furious  flood,  sixty  yards  wide,  tearing  at 
the  roots  of  the  aiks,  and  flinging  red  waves 
against  the  drystone  dykes.  It  was  a  sight  and 
sound  to  solemnise  a  man's  mind,  deep  calling 
unto  deep,  the  great  waters  of  the  hills  running 
to  meet  with  the  great  waters  of  the  sea.  But 
Heriotside  recked  nothing  of  it,  for  his  heart 
had  but  one  thought  and  the  eye  of  his  fancy 
one  figure.  Never  had  he  been  so  filled  with 
love  of  the  lass,  and  yet  it  was  not  happiness  but 
a  deadly  secret  fear. 

As  he  came  to  the  Lang  Muir  it  was  geyan 
dark,  though  there  was  a  moon  somewhere  be- 

227 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

hind  the  clouds.  It  was  little  he  could  see  of  the 
road,  and  ere  long  he  had  tried  many  moss-pools 
and  sloughs,  as  his  braw  new  coat  bare  witness. 
Aye  in  front  of  him  was  the  great  hill  of 
Mucklewhan,  where  the  road  turned  down  by 
the  Mire.  The  noise  of  the  Heriot  had  not  long 
fallen  behind  him  ere  another  began,  the  same 
eerie  sound  of  burns  crying  to  ither  in  the  dark- 
ness. It  seemed  that  the  whole  earth  was  over- 
run with  waters.  Every  little  runnel  in  the  bog 
was  astir,  and  yet  the  land  around  him  was  as 
dry  as  flax,  and  no  drop  of  rain  had  fallen.  As 
he  rode  on  the  din  grew  louder,  and  as  he  came 
.over  the  top  of  Mirehope  he  kenned  by  the 
mighty  rushing  noise  that  something  uncom- 
mon was  happening  with  the  Mire  Burn.  The 
light  from  Mirehope  shelling  twinkled  on  his 
left,  and  had  the  man  not  been  dozened  with  his 
fancies  he  might  have  observed  that  the  stead- 
ing was  deserted  and  men  were  crying  below  in 
the  fields.  But  he  rode  on,  thinking  of  but  one 
thing,  till  he  came  to  the  cot-house  of  Cock- 
malane,  which  is  nigh  the  fords  of  the  Mire. 

John  Dodds,  the  herd  who  bode  in  the  place, 
was  standing  at  the  door,  and  he  looked  to  see 
who  was  on  the  road  so  late. 

"Stop,"  says  he,  "stop.  Laird  Heriotside.  I 
228 


THE  OUTGOING  OF  THE  TIDE 

kenna  what  your  errand  is,  but  it  is  to  no  holy 
purpose  that  ye're  out  on  Beltane  Eve.  D'ye 
no  hear  the  warning  o'  the  waters?" 

And  then  in  the  still  night  came  the  sound  of 
Mire  like  the  clash  of  armies. 

"I  must  win  over  the  ford,"  says  the  laird 
quietly,  thinking  of  another  thing. 

^Tord!"  cried  John  in  scorn.  "There'll  be 
nae  ford  for  you  the  nicht  unless  it  be  the  ford 
o'  the  river  Jordan.  The  burns  are  up,  and  big- 
ger than  man  ever  saw  them.  It'll  be  a  Bel- 
tane's Eve  that  a'  folk  will  remember.  They 
tell  me  that  Gled  valley  is  like  a  loch,  and  that 
there's  an  awesome  folk  drooned  in  the  hills. 
Gin  ye  were  ower  the  Mire,  what  about  crossin' 
the  Caulds  and  the  Sker?"  says  he,  for  he 
jaloused  he  was  going  to  Gledsmuir. 

And  then  it  seemed  that  that  word  brought 
the  laird  to  his  senses.  He  looked  the  airt  the 
rain  was  coming  from,  and  he  saw  it  was  the 
airt  the  Sker  flowed.  In  a  second,  he  has  told 
me,  the  works  of  the  devil  were  revealed  to 
him.  He  saw  himself  a  tool  in  Satan's  hands, 
he  saw  his  tryst  a  device  for  the  destruction  of 
the  body,  as  it  was  assuredly  meant  for  the  de- 
struction of  the  soul,  and  there  came  on  his  mind 
the  picture  of  an  innocent  lass  borne  down  by 

229 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD     j 

the  waters  with  no  place  for  repentance.  His  j 
heart  grew  cold  in  his  breast.  He  had  but  one  [ 
thought,  a  sinful  and  reckless  one — to  get  to  her 
side,  that  the  two  might  go  together  to  their  ac- 
count. He  heard  the  roar  of  the  Mire  as  in  a 
dream,  and  when  John  Dodds  laid  hands  on 
his  bridle  he  felled  him  to  the  earth.  And  the 
next  seen  of  it  was  the  laird  riding  the  floods  like 
a  man  possessed. 

The  horse  was  the  grey  stallion  he  aye  rode, 
the  very  beast  he  had  ridden  for  many  a  wager 
with  the  wild  lads  of  the  Cross  Keys.  No  man 
but  himself  durst  back  it,  and  it  had  lamed  many 
a  hostler  lad  and  broke  two  necks  in  its  day. 
But  it  seemed  it  had  the  mettle  for  any  flood,  and 
took  the  Mire  with  little  spurring.  The  herds 
on  the  hillside  looked  to  see  man  and  steed  swept 
into  eternity;  but  though  the  red  waves  were 
breaking  about  his  shoulders  and  he  was  swept 
far  down,  he  aye  held  on  for  the  shore.  The 
next  thing  the  watchers  saw  was  the  laird  strug- 
gling up  the  far  bank,  and  casting  his  coat  from 
him,  so  that  he  rode  in  his  sark.  And  then  he 
set  off  like  a  wildfire  across  the  muir  towards  the 
turnpike  road.  Two  men  saw  him  on  the  road 
and  have  recorded  their  experience.  One  was 
a  gangrel,  by  name  M^Nab,  who  was  travelling 

230 


THE  OUTGOING  OF  THE  TIDE 

from  Gledsmuir  to  Allerkirk  with  a  heavy  pack 
on  his  back  and  a  bowed  head.     He  heard  a 
sound  like  wind  afore  him,  and,  looking  up, 
saw    coming    down    the    road    a    grey    horse 
stretched  out  to  a  wild  gallop  and  a  man  on  its 
back  with  a  face  like  a  soul  in  torment.     He 
kenned  not  whether  it  was  devil  or  mortal,  but 
flung  himself  on  the  roadside,  and  lay  like  a 
corp  for  an  hour  or  more  till  the  rain  aroused 
him.    The  other  was  one  Sim  Doolittle,  the  fish- 
hawker  from  Allerfoot,  jogging  home  in  his 
fish-cart  from  Gledsmuir  fair.     He  had  drunk 
more  than  was  fit  for  him,  and  he  was  singing 
some  light  song,  when  he  saw  approaching,  as  he 
said,  the  pale  horse  mentioned  in  the  Revela- 
tions, with  Death  seated  as  the  rider.    Thoughts 
of  his  sins  came  on  him  like  a  thunder-clap,  fear 
loosened  his  knees,  he  leaped  from  the  cart  to 
the  road,  and  from  the  road  to  the  back  of  a 
dyke.   Thence  he  flew  to  the  hills,  and  was  found 
the  next  morning  far  up  among  the  Mire  Craigs, 
while  his  horse  and  cart  were  gotten  on  the  Al- 
ler  sands,  the  horse  lamed  and  the  cart  without 
the  wheels. 

At  the  tollhouse  the  road  turns  inland  to 
Gledsmuir,  and  he  who  goes  to  Sker  Bay  must 
le.ive   it  and  cross   the  wild   land   called   the 

231 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

Whinny  Knowes,  a  place  rough  with  bracken 
and  foxes'  holes  and  old  stone  cairns.  The  toll- 
man, John  Gilzean,  was  opening  his  window  to 
get  a  breath  of  air  in  the  lown  night  when  he 
heard  or  saw  the  approaching  horse.  He  kenned 
the  beast  for  Heriotside's,  and,  being  a  friend  of 
the  laird's,  he  ran  down  in  all  haste  to  open  the 
yett,  wondering  to  himself  about  the  laird's  er- 
rand on  this  night.  A  voice  came  down  the 
road  to  him  bidding  him  hurry;  but  John's  old 
fingers  were  slow  with  the  keys,  and  so  it  hap- 
pened that  the  horse  had  to  stop,  and  John  had 
time  to  look  up  at  the  gash  and  woful  face. 

"Where  away  the  nicht  sae  late,  laird?"  says 
John. 

"I  go  to  save  a  soul  from  hell,"  was  the  an- 
swer. 

And  then  it  seems  that  through  the  open  door 
there  came  the  chapping  of  a  clock. 

"Whatna  hour  is  that?"  asks  Heriotside. 

"Midnicht,"  says  John,  trembling,  for  he  did 
not  like  the  look  of  things. 

There  was  no  answer  but  a  groan,  and  horse 
and  man  went  racing  down  the  dark  hollows  of 
the  Whinny  Knowes. 

How  he  escaped  a  broken  neck  in  that  dread- 
ful place  no  human  being  will  ever  tell.    The 

232 


THE  OUTGOING  OF  THE  TIDE 

sweat,  he  has  told  me,  stood  in  cold  drops  upon 
his  forehead ;  he  scarcely  was  aware  of  the  saddle 
in  which  he  sat;  and  his  eyes  were  stelled  in  his 
head,  so  that  he  saw  nothing  but  the  sky  ayont 
him.  The  night  was  growing  colder,  and  there 
was  a  small  sharp  wind  stirring  from  the  east 
But,  hot  or  cold,  it  was  all  one  to  him,  who  was 
already  cold  as  death.  He  heard  not  the  sound 
of  the  sea  nor  the  peesweeps  startled  by  his  horse, 
for  the  sound  that  ran  in  his  ears  was  the  roar- 
ing Sker  Water  and  a  girl's  cry.  The  thought 
kept  goading  him,  and  he  spurred  the  grey  till 
the  creature  was  madder  than  himself.  It 
leaped  the  hole  which  they  call  the  Devil's  Mull 
as  I  would  step  over  a  thistle,  and  the  next  he 
kenned  he  was  on  the  edge  of  the  Sker  Bay. 

It  lay  before  him  white  and  ghastly,  with  mist 
blowing  in  wafts  across  it  and  a  slow  swaying 
of  the  tides.  It  was  the  better  part  of  a  mile 
wide,  but  save  for  some  fathoms  in  the  middle 
where  the  Sker  current  ran,  it  was  no  deeper 
even  at  flood  than  a  horse's  fetlocks.  It  looks 
eerie  at  bright  midday  when  the  sun  is  shining 
and  whaups  are  crying  among  the  seaweeds ;  but 
think  what  it  was  on  that  awesome  night  with 
the  powers  of  darkness  brooding  over  it  like  a 
cloud.    The  rider's  heart  quailed  for  a  moment 

2'33 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

in  natural  fear.  He  stepped  his  beast  a  few- 
feet  in,  still  staring  afore  him  like  a  daft  man. 
And  then  something  in  the  sound  or  the  feel  of 
the  waters  made  him  look  down,  and  he  per- 
ceived that  the  ebb  had  begun  and  the  tide  was 
flowing  out  to  sea. 

He  kenned  that  all  was  lost,  and  the  knowl- 
edge drove  him  to  stark  despair.  His  sins  came 
in  his  face  like  birds  of  night,  and  his  heart 
shrank  like  a  pea.  He  knew  himself  for  a  lost 
soul,  and  all  that  he  loved  in  the  world  was  out 
in  the  tides.  There,  at  any  rate,  he  could  go 
too,  and  give  back  that  gift  of  life  he  had  so 
blackly  misused.  He  cried  small  and  soft  like  a 
bairn,  and  drove  the  grey  out  into  the  waters. 
And  aye  as  he  spurred  it  the  foam  should  have 
been  flying  as  high  as  his  head ;  but  in  that  un- 
canny hour  there  was  no  foam,  only  the  waves 
running  sleek  like  oil.  It  was  not  long  ere  he 
had  come  to  the  Sker  channel,  where  the  red 
moss-waters  were  roaring  to  the  sea,  an  ill  place 
to  ford  in  midsummer  heat,  and  certain  death, 
as  folks  reputed  it,  at  the  smallest  spate.  The 
grey  was  swimming,  but  it  seemed  the  Lord  had 
other  purposes  for  him  than  death,  for  neither 
man  nor  horse  could  drown.  He  tried  to  leave 
the  saddle,  but  he  could  not;  he  flung  the  bridle 

234 


THE  OUTGOING  OF  THE  TIDE 

from  him,  but  the  grey  held  on,  as  if  some  strong 
hand  were  guiding.  He  cried  out  upon  the 
devil  to  help  his  own,  he  renounced  his  Maker 
and  his  God;  but  whatever  his  punishment,  he 
was  not  to  be  drowned.  And  then  he  was  silent, 
for  something  was  coming  down  the  tide. 

It  came  down  as  quiet  as  a  sleeping  bairn, 
straight  for  him  as  he  sat  with  his  horse  breast- 
ing the  waters,  and  as  it  came  the  moon  crept  out 
of  a  cloud  and  he  saw  a  glint  of  yellow  hair. 
And  then  his  madness  died  away  and  he  was 
himself  again,  a  weary  and  stricken  man.  He 
hung  down  over  the  tides  and  caught  the  body  in 
his  arms,  and  then  let  the  grey  make  for  the  shal- 
lows. He  cared  no  more  for  the  devil  and  all 
his  myrmidons,  for  he  kenned  brawly  he  was 
damned.  It  seemed  to  him  that  his  soul  had 
gone  from  him  and  he  was  as  toom  as  a  hazel- 
shell.  His  breath  rattled  in  his  throat,  the  tears 
were  dried  up  in  his  head,  his  body  had  lost  its 
strength,  and  yet  he  clung  to  the  drowned  maid 
as  to  a  hope  of  salvation.  And  then  he  noted 
something  at  which  he  marvelled  dumbly.  Her 
hair  was  drookit  back  from  her  clay-cold  brow, 
her  eyes  were  shut,  but  in  her  face  there  was 
the  peace  of  a  child.  It  seemed  even  that  her 
lips  were  smiling.     Here,  certes,  was  no  lost 

235 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

soul,  but  one  who  had  gone  joyfully  to  meet 
her  Lord.  It  may  be  in  that  dark  hour  at  the 
burn-foot,  before  the  spate  caught  her,  she  had 
been  given  grace  to  resist  her  adversary  and 
flung  herself  upon  God's  mercy. 

And  it  would  seem  that  it  had  been  granted, 
for  when  he  came  to  the  Skerburnfoot  there  in 
the  corner  sat  the  weird-wife  Alison  dead  as  a 
stone  and  shrivelled  like  a  heatherbirn. 

For  days  Heriotside  wandered  the  country  or 
sat  in  his  own  house  with  vacant  eye  and 
trembling  hands.  Conviction  of  sin  held  him 
like  a  vice:  he  saw  the  lassie's  death  laid  at  his 
door,  her  face  haunted  him  by  day  and  night, 
and  the  word  of  the  Lord  dirled  in  his  ears  tell- 
ing of  wrath  and  punishment.  The  greatness 
of  his  anguish  wore  him  to  a  shadow,  and  at 
last  he  was  stretched  on  his  bed  and  like  to 
perish.  In  his  extremity  worthy  Doctor 
Chrystal  went  to  him  unasked  and  strove  to 
comfort  him.  Long,  long  the  good  man 
wrestled,  but  it  seemed  as  if  his  ministrations 
were  to  be  of  no  avail.  The  fever  left  his  body, 
and  he  rose  to  stotter  about  the  doors;  but  he 
was  still  in  his  torments,  and  the  mercy-seat  was 
far  from  him.  At  last  in  the  back-end  of  the 
year  came  Mungo  Muirhead  to  Caulds  to  the 

236 


THE  OUTGOING  OF  THE  TIDE 

autumn  communion,  and  nothing  would  serve 
him  but  he  must  try  his  hand  at  this  storm- 
tossed  soul.  He  spoke  with  power  and  unction, 
and  a  blessing  came  with  his  words,  the  black 
cloud  lifted  and  showed  a  glimpse  of  grace,  and 
in  a  little  the  man  had  some  assurance  of  salva- 
tion. He  became  a  pillar  of  Christ's  Kirk, 
prompt  to  check  abominations,  notably  the  sin  of 
witchcraft,  foremost  in  good  works;  but  with  it 
all  a  humble  man,  who  walked  contritely  till  his 
death.  When  I  came  first  to  Caulds  I  sought  to 
prevail  upon  him  to  accept  the  eldership,  but  he 
aye  put  me  by,  and  when  I  heard  his  tale  I  saw 
that  he  had  done  wisely.  I  mind  him  well  as 
he  sat  in  his  chair  or  daundered  through  Caulds, 
a  kind  word  for  every  one  and  sage  counsel  in 
time  of  distress,  but  withal  a  severe  man  to  him- 
self and  a  crucifier  of  the  body.  It  seems  that 
this  severity  weakened  his  frame,  for  three  years 
syne  come  Martinmas  he  was  taken  ill  with  a 
fever,  and  after  a  week's  sickness  he  went  to  his 
account,  where  I  trust  he  is  accepted. 


237 


THE  RIME  OF  TRUE  THOMAS 

The  Tale  of  the  Respectable  Whaup  and  the 
Great  Godly  Man 

THIS  is  a  story  that  I  heard  from  the  King 
of  the  Numidians,  who  with  his  tattered 
retinue  encamps  behind  the  peat-ricks.  If  you 
ask  me  where  and  when  it  happened  I  fear  that 
I  am  scarce  ready  with  an  answer.  But  I  will 
vouch  my  honour  for  its  truth ;  and  if  any  one 
seek  further  proof,  let  him  go  east  the  town  and 
west  the  town  and  over  the  fields  of  Nomans- 
land  to  the  Long  Muir,  and  if  he  find  not  the 
King  there  among  the  peat-ricks,  and  get  not  a 
courteous  answer  to  his  question,  then  times 
have  changed  in  that  part  of  the  country,  and  he 
must  continue  the  quest  to  his  Majesty's  castle  in 
Spain. 

Once  upon  a  time,  says  the  tale,  there  was  a 
Great  Godly  Man,  a  shepherd  to  trade,  who 
lived  in  a  cottage  among  heather.    If  you  lookej 

238 


I 


THE  RIME  OF  TRUE  THOMAS 


east  in  the  morning,  you  saw  miles  of  moor  run- 
ning wide  to  the  flames  of  sunrise,  and  if  you 
turned  your  eyes  west  in  the  evening,  you  saw 
a  great  confusion  of  dim  peaks  with  the  dying 
eye  of  the  sun  set  in  a  crevice.  If  you  looked 
north,  too,  in  the  afternoon,  when  the  life  of  the 
day  is  near  its  end  and  the  world  grows  wise,  you 
might  have  seen  a  country  of  low  hills  and 
haughlands  with  many  waters  running  sweet 
among  meadows.  But  if  you  looked  south  in  the 
dusty  forenoon  or  at  hot  midday,  you  saw  the 
far-off  glimmer  of  a  white  road,  the  roofs  of 
the  ugly  little  clachan  of  Kilmaclavers,  and  the 
rigging  of  the  fine  new  kirk  of  Threepdaidle. 

It;  was  a  Sabbath  afternoon  in  the  hot  weather, 
and  the  man  had  been  to  kirk  all  the  morning. 
He  had  heard  a  grand  sermon  from  the  min- 
ister (or  it  may  have  been  the  priest,  for  I  am 
not  sure  of  the  date  and  the  King  told  the  story 
quickly) — a  fine  discourse  with  fifteen  heads  and 
three  parentheses.  He  held  all  the  parentheses 
and  fourteen  of  the  heads  in  his  memory,  but  he 
had  forgotten  the  fifteenth;  so  for  the  purpose 
of  recollecting  it,  and  also  for  the  sake  of  a  walk, 
he  went  forth  in  the  afternoon  into  the  open 
heather. 

The  whaups  were  crying  everywhere,  making 
239 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

the  air  hum  like  the  twanging  of  a  bow.  Poo- 
eelie,  Poo-eelie,  they  cried,  Kirlew,  Kirlew, 
Whaup,  Wha-  -up.  Sometimes  they  came  low, 
all  but  brushing  him,  till  they  drove  settled 
thoughts  from  his  head.  Often  had  he  been  on 
the  moors,  but  never  had  he  seen  such  a  stramash 
among  the  feathered  clan.  The  wailing  itera- 
tion vexed  him,  and  he  shoo'd  the  birds  away 
with  his  arms.  But  they  seemed  to  mock  him 
and  whistle  in  his  very  face,  and  at  the  flaff  of 
their  wings  his  heart  grew  sore.  He  waved  his 
great  stick;  he  picked  up  bits  of  loose  moor- 
rock  and  flung  them  wildly;  but  the  godless  crew 
paid  never  a  grain  of  heed.  The  morning's 
sermon  was  still  in  his  head,  and  the  grave  words 
of  the  minister  still  rattled  in  his  ear,  but  he 
could  get  no  comfort  for  this  intolerable  pip- 
ing. At  last  his  patience  failed  him  and  he 
swore  unchristian  words.  "Deil  rax  the  birds' 
thrapples,"  he  cried. 

At  this  all  the  noise  was  hushed  and  in  a 
twinkling  the  moor  was  empty.  Only  one  bird 
was  left,  standing  on  tall  legs  before  him  with  its 
head  bowed  upon  its  breast,  and  its  beak  touch- 
ing the  heather. 

Then  the  man  repented  his  words  and  stared 
240 


THE  RIME  OF  TRUE  THOMAS 

at  the  thing  in  the  moss.  "What  bird  are  ye?" 
he  asked  thrawnly. 

''I  am  a  Respectable  Whaup,"  said  the  bird, 
"and  I  kenna  why  ye  have  broken  in  on  our 
family  gathering.  Once  in  a  hundred  years  we 
foregather  for  decent  conversation,  and  here  we 
arc  interrupted  by  a  muckle,  sweerin'  man." 

Now  the  shepherd  was  a  fellow  of  great 
sagacity,  yet  he  never  thought  it  a  queer  thing 
that  he  should  be  having  talk  in  the  mid-moss 
with  a  bird. 

''What  for  were  ye  making  siccan  a  din, 
then?"  he  asked.  "D'ye  no  ken  ye  were  disturb- 
ing the  afternoon  of  the  holy  Sabbath?" 

The  bird  lifted  its  eyes  and  regarded  him 
solemnly.  "The  Sabbath  is  a  day  of  rest  and 
gladness,"  it  said,  "and  is  it  no  reasonable  that 
we  should  enjoy  the  like?" 

The  shepherd  shook  his  head,  for  the  pre- 
sumption staggered  him.  "Ye  little  ken  what  ye 
speak  of,"  he  said.  "The  Sabbath  is  for  them 
that  have  the  chance  of  salvation,  and  it  has 
been  decreed  that  salvation  is  for  Adam's  race 
and  no  for  the  beasts  that  perish." 

The  whaup  gave  a  whistle  of  scorn.  "I  have 
heard  all  that  long  ago.  In  my  great-grand- 
mother's time,  which  'ill  be  a  thousand  years  and 

241 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

mair  syne,  there  came  a  people  from  the  south 
with  bright  brass  things  on  their  heads  and 
breasts  and  terrible  swords  at  their  thighs.  And 
with  them  were  some  lang-gowned  men  who 
kenned  the  stars  and  would  come  out  o'  nights  to 
talk  to  the  deer  and  the  corbies  in  their  ain 
tongue.  And  one,  I  mind,  foregathered  with  my 
great-grandmother  and  told  her  that  the  souls 
o'  men  flitted  in  the  end  to  braw  meadows  where 
the  gods  bide  or  gaed  down  to  the  black  pit 
which  they  ca'  Hell.  But  the  souls  o'  birds,  he 
said,  die  wi'  their  bodies,  and  that's  the  end  o' 
them.  Likewise  in  my  mother's  time,  when 
there  was  a  great  abbey  down  yonder  by  the 
Threepdaidle  Burn  which  they  called  the 
House  of  Kilmaclavers,  the  auld  monks  would 
walk  out  in  the  evening  to  pick  herbs  for  their 
distillings,  and  some  were  wise  and  kenned  the 
ways  of  bird  and  beast.  They  would  crack  often 
o'nights  with  my  ain  family,  and  tell  them  that 
Christ  had  saved  the  souls  o'  men,  but  that  birds 
and  beasts  were  perishable  as  the  dew  o'  heaven. 
And  now  ye  have  a  black-gowned  man  in 
Threepdaidle  who  threeps  on  the  same  ower- 
come.  Ye  may  a'  ken  something  o'  your  ain 
kitchen-midden,  but  certes!  ye  ken  little  o'  the 
warld  beyond  it." 

242 


THE  RIME  OF  TRUE  THOMAS 

Now  this  angered  the  man,  and  he  rebuked 
the  bird.  "These  are  great  mysteries,"  he  said, 
"which  are  no  to  be  mentioned  in  the  ears  of  an 
unsanctified  creature.  What  can  a  thing  like 
you  wi'  a  lang  neb  and  twae  legs  like  stilts  ken 
about  the  next  warld?" 

"Weel,  weel,"  said  the  whaup,  "we'll  let  the 
matter  be.  Everything  to  its  ain  trade,  and  I 
will  not  dispute  with  ye  on  metapheesics.  But 
if  ye  ken  something  about  the  next  warld,  ye  ken 
terrible  little  about  this." 

Now  this  angered  the  man  still  more,  for  he 
was  a  shepherd  reputed  to  have  great  skill  in 
sheep  and  esteemed  the  nicest  judge  of  hogg  and 
wether  in  all  the  countryside.  "What  ken  ye 
about  that?"  he  asked.  "Ye  may  gang  east  to 
Yetholm  and  west  to  Kells,  and  no  find  a  better 
herd." 

"If  sheep  were  a',"  said  the  bird,  "ye  micht 
be  right;  but  what  o'  the  wide  warld  and  the 
folk  in  it?  Ye  are  Simon  Etterick  o'  the  Lowe 
Moss.    Do  ye  ken  aucht  o'  your  forebears?" 

"]VIy  father  was  a  God-fearing  man  at  the 
Kennelhead,  and  my  grandfather  and  great- 
grandfather afore  him.  One  o'  our  name,  folk 
say,  was  shot  at  a  dykeback  by  the  Black 
Westeraw." 

243 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

"If  that's  aV  said  the  bird,  "ye  ken  little. 
Have  ye  never  heard  o'  the  little  man,  the*  fourth 
back  from  yoursel',  who  killed  the  Miller  o' 
Bewcastle  at  the  Lammas  Fair?  That  was  in 
my  ain  time,  and  from  my  mother  I  have  heard 
o'  the  Covenanter  who  got  a  bullet  in  his  wame 
hunkering  behind  the  divot-dyke  and  praying 
to  his  Maker.  There  were  others  o'  your  name 
rode  in  the  Hermitage  forays  and  burned  Na- 
worth  and  Warkworth  and  Castle  Gay.  I  have 
heard  o'  an  Etterick,  Sim  o'  the  Redcleuch,  who 
cut  the  throat  o'  Jock  Johnstone  in  his  ain  house 
by  the  Annan  side.  And  my  grandmother  had 
tales  o'  auld  Ettericks  who  rade  wi'  Douglas 
and  the  Bruce  and  the  ancient  Kings  o'  Scots; 
and  she  used  to  tell  o'  others  in  her  mother's 
time,  terrible  shock-headed  men,  hunting  the 
deer  and  rinnin'  on  the  high  moors,  and  bidin'  in 
the  broken  stane  biggings  on  the  hill-taps." 

The  shepherd  stared,  and  he,  too,  saw  the  pic- 
ture. He  smelled  the  air  of  battle  and  lust  and 
foray,  and  forgot  the  Sabbath. 

"And  you  yoursel',"  said  the  bird,  "are  sair 
fallen  off  from  the  auld  stock.  Now  ye  sit  and 
spell  in  books,  and  talk  about  what  ye  little  un- 
derstand, when  your  fathers  were  roaming  the 
warld.    But  little  cause  have  I  to  speak,  for  I  too 

244 


I 


THE  RIME  OF  TRUE  THOMAS 

am  a  downcome.  My  bill  is  two  inches  shorter 
than  my  mother's,  and  my  grandmother  was 
taller  on  her  feet.  The  warld  is  getting  weak- 
lier things  to  dwell  in  it,  even  since  I  mind 
myser." 

^'Ye  have  the  gift  o'  speech,  bird,"  said  the 
man,  "and  I  would  hear  mair."  You  will  per- 
ceive that  he  had  no  mind  of  the  Sabbath  day  or 
the  fifteenth  head  of  the  forenoon's  discourse. 

"What  things  have  I  to  tell  ye  when  ye  dinna 
ken  the  very  horn-book  o'  knowledge?  Besides, 
I  am  no  clatter-vengeance  to  tell  stories  in  the 
middle  o'  the  muir,  where  there  are  ears  open 
high  and  low.  There's  others  than  me  wi'  mair 
experience  and  a  better  skill  at  the  telling.  Our 
clan  was  well  acquaint  wi'  the  reivers  and  lifters 
o'  the  muirs,  and  could  crack  fine  o'  wars  and  the 
taking  of  cattle.  But  the  blue  hawk  that  lives  in 
the  corrie  o'  the  Dreichil  can  speak  o'  kelpies 
and  the  dwarfs  that  bide  in  the  hill.  The  heron, 
the  lang  solemn  fellow,  kens  o'  the  greenwood 
fairies  and  the  wood  elfins,  and  the  wild  geese 
that  squatter  on  the  tap  o'  the  Muneraw  will 
croak  to  ye  of  the  merrymaidens  and  the  girls 
o'  the  pool.  The  wren — him  that  hops  in  the 
grass  below  the  birks — has  the  story  of  the  Lost 
Ladies  of  the  Land,  which  is  ower  auld  and  sad 

245 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

for  any  but  the  wisest  to  hear;  and  there  is  a  wee 
bird  bides  in  the  heather — hill-lintie  men  call 
him — who  sings  the  Lay  of  the  West  Wind,  and 
the  Glee  of  the  Rowan  Berries.  But  what  am  I 
talking  of?  What  are  these  things  to  you,  if  ye 
have  not  first  heard  True  Thomas's  Rime,  which 
is  the  beginning  and  end  o'  all  things?" 

"I  have  heard  no  rime,"  said  the  man,  "save 
the  sacred  psalms  o'  God's  Kirk." 

"Bonny  rimes,"  said  the  bird.  "Once  I  flew 
by  the  hinder  end  o'  the  Kirk  and  I  keekit  in. 
A  wheen  auld  wives  wi'  mutches  and  a  wheen 
solemn  men  wi'  hoasts!  Be  sure  the  Rime  is  no 
like  yon." 

"Can  ye  sing  it,  bird?"  said  the  man,  "for  I 
am  keen  to  hear  it." 

"Me  sing,"  cried  the  bird,  "me  that  has  a 
voice  like  a  craw!  Na,  na,  I  canna  sing  it,  but 
maybe  I  can  take  ye  where  ye  may  hear  it. 
When  I  was  young  an  auld  bogblitter  did  the 
same  to  me,  and  sae  began  my  education.  But 
are  ye  willing  and  brawly  willing? — for  if  ye 
get  but  a  sough  of  it  ye  will  never  mair  have  an 
ear  for  other  music." 

"I  am  willing  and  brawly  willing,"  said  the 
man. 

"Then  meet  me  at  the  Gled's  Cleuch  Head  ::it 
246 


THE  RIME  OF  TRUE  THOMAS 

the  sun's  setting,"  said  the  bird,  and  it  flew  away. 

Now  it  seemed  to  the  man  that  in  a  twinkling 
it  was  sunset,  and  he  found  himself  at  the  Gled's 
Cleuch  Head  with  the  bird  flapping  in  the 
heather  before  him.  The  place  was  a  loijg  rift 
in  the  hill,  made  green  with  juniper  and  hazel, 
where  it  was  said  True  Thomas  came  to  drink 
the  water. 

^Turn  ye  to  the  west,"  said  the  whaup,  "and 
let  the  sun  fall  on  your  face;  then  turn  ye  five 
times  round  about  and  say  after  me  the  Rune  of 
the  Heather  and  thie  Dew."  And  before  he 
knew,  the  man  did  as  he  was  told,  and  found 
himself  speaking  strange  words,  while  his  head 
hummed  and  danced  as  if  in  a  fever. 

"Now  lay  ye  down  and  put  your  ear  to  the 
earth,"  said  the  bird;  and  the  man  did  so. 
Instantly  a  cloud  came  over  his  brain,  and  he  did 
not  feel  the  ground  on  which  he  lay  or  the  keen 
hill-air  which  blew  about  him.  He  felt  himself 
falling  deep  into  an  abysm  of  space,  then  sud- 
denly caught  up  and  set  among  the  stars  of 
heaven.  Then  slowly  from  the  stillness  there 
welled  forth  music,  drop  by  drop  like  the  clear 
falling  of  rain,  and  the  man  shuddered,  for  he 
knew  that  he  heard  the  beginning  of  the  Rime. 

247 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

High  rose  the  air,  and  trembled  among  the 
tallest  pines  and  the  summits  of  great  hills.  And 
in  it  were  the  sting  of  rain  and  the  blatter  of 
hail,  the  soft  crush  of  snow  and  the  rattle  of 
thunder  among  crags.  Then  it  quieted  to  the 
low  sultry  croon  which  told  of  blazing  midday 
when  the  streams  are  parched  and  the  bent 
crackles  like  dry  tinder.  Anon  it  was  evening, 
and  the  melody  dwelled  among  the  high  soft 
notes  which  mean  the  coming  of  dark  and  the 
green  light  of  sunset.  Then  the  whole  changed 
to  a  great  paean  which  rang  like  an  organ 
through  the  earth.  There  were  trumpet  notes  in 
it  and  flute  notes  and  the  plaint  of  pipes.  "Come 
forth,"  it  cried;  "the  sky  is  wide  and  it  is  a  far 
cry  to  the  world's  end.  The  fire  crackles  fine  o' 
nights  below  the  firs,  and  the  smell  of  roasting 
meat  and  wood  smoke  is  dear  to  the  heart  of  man. 
Fine,  too,  is  the  sting  of  salt  and  the  risp  of  the 
north  wind  in  the  sheets.  Come  forth,  one  and 
all,  to  the  great  lands  oversea,  and  the  strange 
tongues  and  the  fremit  peoples.  Learn  before 
you  die  to  follow  the  Piper's  Son,  and  though 
your  old  bones  bleach  among  grey  rocks,  what 
matter,  if  you  have  had  your  bellyful  of  life  and 
come  to  your  heart's  desire?"  And  the  tune  fell 
low  and  witching,  bringing  tears  to  the  eyes  and 

248 


THE  RIME  OF  TRUE  THOMAS 

joy  to  the  heart;  and  the  man  knew  (though  no 
one  told  him)  that  this  was  the  first  part  of  the 
Rime,  the  Song  of  the  Open  Road,  the  Lilt  of 
the  Adventurer,  which  shall  be  now  and  ever 
and  to  the  end  of  days. 

Then  the  melody  changed  to  a  fiercer  and  sad- 
der note.  He  saw  his  forefathers,  gaunt  men 
and  terrible,  run  stark  among  woody  hills.  He 
heard  the  talk  of  the  bronze-clad  invader,  and 
the  jar  and  clangour  as  stone  met  steel.  Then 
rose  the  last  coronach  of  his  own  people,  hid- 
ing in  wild  glens,  starving  in  corries,  or  going 
hopelessly  to  the  death.  He  heard  the  cry  of 
Border  foray,  the  shouts  of  the  famished  Scots 
as  they  harried  Cumberland,  and  he  himself 
rode  in  the  midst  of  them.  Then  the  tune  fell 
more  mournful  and  slow,  and  Flodden  lay  be- 
fore him.  He  saw  the  flower  of  the  Scots  gentry 
around  their  King,  gashed  to  the  breast-bone, 
still  fronting  the  lines  of  the  south,  though  the 
paleness  of  death  sat  on  each  forehead.  "The 
flowers  of  the  Forest  are  gone,"  cried  the  lilt, 
and  through  the  long  years  he  heard  the  cry  of 
the  lost,  the  desperate,  fighting  for  kings  over 
the  water  and  princes  in  the  heather.  "Who 
cares?"  cried  the  air.  "Man  must  die,  and  how 
can  he  die  better  than  in  the  stress  of  fight  with 

249 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

his  heart  high  and  alien  blood  on  his  sword? 
Heigh-ho!  One  against  twenty,  a  child  against 
a  host,  this  is  the  romance  of  life."  And  the 
man's  heart  swelled,  for  he  knew  (though  no 
one  told  him)  that  this  was  the  Song  of  Lost  Bat- 
tles which  only  the  great  can  sing  before  they 
die. 

But  the  tune  was  changing,  and  at  the  change 
the  man  shivered,  for  the  air  ran  up  to  the  high 
notes  and  then  down  to  the  deeps  with  an  eldrich 
cry,  like  a  hawk's  scream  at  night,  or  a  witch's 
song  in  the  gloaming.  It  told  of  those  who  seek 
and  never  find,  the  quest  that  knows  no  fulfil- 
ment. "There  is  a  road,"  it  cried,  "which  leads 
to  the  Moon  and  the  Great  Waters.  No  change- 
house  cheers  it,  and  it  has  no  end;  but  it  is  a 
find  road,  a  braw  road — ^who  will  follow  it?" 
And  the  man  knew  (though  no  one  told  him) 
that  this  was  the  Ballad  of  Grey  Weather,  which 
makes  him  who  hears  it  sick  all  the  days  of  his 
life  for  something  which  he  cannot  name.  It 
is  the  song  which  the  birds  sing  on  the  moor  in 
the  autumn  nights,  and  the  old  crow  on  the  tree- 
top  hears  and  flaps  his  wing.  It  is  the  lilt  which 
men  and  women  hear  in  the  darkening  of  their 
days,  and  sigh  for  the  unforgetable;  and  love- 
sick girls  get  catches  of  it  and  play  pranks  with 

250 


THE  RIME  OF  TRUE  THOMAS 

their  lovers.  It  is  a  song  so  old  that  Adam  heard 
it  in  the  Garden  before  Eve  came  to  comfort 
him,  so  young  that  from  it  still  flows  the  whole 
joy  and  sorrow  of  earth. 

Then  it  ceased,  and  all  of  a  sudden  the  man 
was  rubbing  his  eyes  on  the  hillside,  and  watch- 
ing the  falling  dusk.  "I  have  heard  the  Rime," 
he  said  to  himself,  and  he  walked  home  in  a  daze. 
The  whaups  were  crying,  but  none  came  near 
him,  though  he  looked  hard  for  the  bird  that 
had  spoken  with  him.  It  may  be  that  it  was 
there  and  he  did  not  know  it,  or  it  may  be  that 
the  whole  thing  was  only  a  dream;  but  of  this 
I  cannot  say. 

The  next  morning  the  man  rose  and  went  to 
the  manse. 

"I  am  glad  to  see  you,  Simon,"  said  the  min- 
ister, "for  it  will  soon  be  the  Communion  Sea- 
son, and  it  is  your  duty  to  go  round  with  the 
,  tokens." 

"True,"  said  the  man,  "but  it  was  another 
thing  I  came  to  talk  about,"  and  he  told  him  the 
whole  tale. 

"There  are  but  two  ways  of  it,  Simon,"  said 
the  minister.  "Either  ye  are  the  victim  of  witch- 
craft, or  ye  are  a  self-deluded  man.     If  the 

251- 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

former  (whilk  I  am  loth  to  believe),  then  it  be- 
hoves ye  to  v^atch  and  pray  lest  ye  enter  into 
temptation.  If  the  latter,  then  ye  maun  put  a 
strict  watch  over  a  vagrom  fancy,  and  ye'U  be 
quit  o'  siccan  whigmaleeries." 

Now  Simon  was  not  listening,  but  staring  out 
of  the  window.  "There  was  another  thing  I 
had  it  in  my  mind  to  say,"  said  he.  "I  have 
come  to  lift  my  lines,  for  I  am  thinking  of  leav- 
ing the  place." 

"And  where  would  ye  go?"  asked  the 
minister,  aghast. 

"I  was  thinking  of  going  to  Carlisle  and  try- 
ing my  luck  as  a  dealer,  or  maybe  pushing  on 
with  droves  to  the  South." 

"But  that's  a  cauld  country  where  there  are 
no  faithfu'  ministrations,"  said  the  minister. 

"Maybe  so,  but  I  am  not  caring  very  muckle 
about  ministrations,"  said  the  man,  and  the  other 
looked  after  him  in  horror. 

When  he  left  the  manse  he  went  to  a  Wise 
Woman,  who  lived  on  the  left  side  of  the  kirk- 
yard  above  Threepdaidle  burn-foot.  She  was 
very  old,  and  sat  by  the  ingle  day  and  night, 
waiting  upon  death.  To  her  he  told  the  same 
tale. 

She  listened  gravely,  nodding  with  her  head. 
252 


THE  RLME  OF  TRUE  THOMAS 

"Ach,"  she  said,  '^I  have  heard  a  like  story  be- 
fore.   And  where  will  you  be  going?"    , 

'^I  am  going  south  to  Carlis  e  to  try  the  deal- 
ing and  droving,"  said  the  man^  "for  I  have  some 
skill  of  sheep." 

"And  will  ye  bide  there?"  she  asked. 

"Maybe  aye,  and  maybe  no,"  he  said.  "I  had 
half  a  mind  to  push  on  to  the  big  toun  or  even 
to  the  abroad.    A  man  must  try  his  fortune." 

"That's  the  way  of  men,"  said  the  old  wife. 
"L  too,  have  heard  the  Rime,  and  many  women 
who  now  sit  decently  spinning  in  Kilmaclavers 
have  heard  it.  But  a  woman  may  hear  it  and  lay 
it  up  in  her  soul  and  bide  at  hame,  while  a  man, 
if  he  get  but  a  glisk  of  it  in  his  fooPs  heart,  must 
needs  up  and  awa'  to  the  warld's  end  on  some 
daft-like  ploy.  But  gang  your  ways  and  fare- 
ye-weel.  My  cousin  Francie  heard  it,  and  he 
went  north  wi'  a  white  cockade  in  his  bonnet  and 
a  sword  at  his  side,  singing  ^Charlie's  come 
hame.'  And  Tam  Crichtoun  o'  the  Bourhope- 
head  got  a  sough  o'  it  one  simmer's  morning, 
and  the  last  we  heard  o'  Tam  he  was  fechting 
like  a  deil  among  the  Frenchmen.  Once  I  heard 
a  tinkler  play  a  sprig  of  it  on  the  pipes,  and  a' 
the  lads  were  wud  to  follow  him.    Gang  your 

253 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

ways,  for  I  am  near  the  end  o'  mine."    And  the 
old  wife  shook  with  her  coughing. 

So  the  man  put  up  his  belongings  in  a  pack  on 
his  back  and  went  whistling  down  the  Great 
South  Road. 

Whether  or  not  this  tale  have  a  moral  it  is  not 
for  me  to  say.  The  King  (who  told  it  me)  said 
that  it  had,  and  quoted  a  scrap  of  Latin,  for  he 
had  been  at  Oxford  in  his  youth  before  he  fell 
heir  to  his  kingdom.  One  may  hear  tunes  from 
the  Rime,  said  he,  in  the  thick  of  a  storm  on  the  j 
scarp  of  a  rough  hill,  in  the  soft  June  weather, 
or  in  the  sunset  silence  of  a  winter's  night.  But 
let  none,  he  added,  pray  to  have  the  full  music; 
for  it  will  make  him  who  hears  it  a  footsore 
traveller  in  the  ways  o'  the  world  and  a  master- 
less  man  till  death. 


I 


254 


VI 

BASILISSA 


WHEN  Vernon  was  a  very  little  boy  he 
was  the  sleepiest  of  mortals,  but  in  the 
spring  he  had  seasons  of  bad  dreams,  and  break- 
fast became  an  idle  meal.  Mrs  Ganthony, 
greatly  concerned,  sent  for  Dr  Moreton  from 
Axby,  and  homely  remedies  were  prescribed. 

"It  is  the  spring  fever,"  said  the  old  man.  "It 
gives  the  gout  to  me  and  nightmares  to  this  baby; 
it  brings  lads  and  lasses  together,  and  scatters 
young  men  about  the  world.  An  antique  com- 
plaint, Mrs  Ganthony.  But  it  will  right  itself, 
never  fear.  Ver  non  semper  viretf'  Chuckling 
at  his  ancient  joke,  the  doctor  mounted  his  horse, 
leaving  the  nurse  only  half  comforted.  "What 
fidgets  me,"  she  told  the  housekeeper,  "is  the 
way  his  lordship  holds  his  tongue.  For  usual 
he'll  shout  as  lusty  as  a  whelp.  But  now  I  finds 
him  in  the  morning  with  his  eyes  like  moons  and 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

his  skin  white  and  shiny,  and  never  a  cheep  has 
he  given  the  whole  blessed  night,  with  me  lay- 
ing next  door,  and  it  open,  and  a  light  sleeper 
at  all  times,  Mrs  Wace,  ma'am." 

Every  year  the  dreams  came,  generally — for 
his  springs  were  spent  at  Severns — in  the  big 
new  night-nursery  at  the  top  of  the  west  wing, 
which  his  parents  had  built  not  long  before  their 
death.  It  had  three  windows  looking  over  the 
moorish  flats  which  run  up  to  the  Lancashire 
fells,  and  from  one  window,  by  craning  your 
neck,  you  could  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  sea.  It 
was  all  hung,  too,  with  a  Chinese  paper  where- 
on pink  and  green  parrots  squatted  in  wonderful 
blue  trees,  and  there  seemed  generally  to  be  a 
wood  fire  burning.  Vernon's  recollections  of 
his  childish  nightmare  are  hazy.  He  always 
found  himself  in  a  room  different  from  the 
nursery  and  bigger,  but  with  the  same  smell  of 
wood  smoke.  People  came  and  went,  such  as  his 
nurse,  the  butler,  Simon  the  head-keeper.  Uncle 
Appleby  his  guardian.  Cousin  Jennifer,  the  old 
woman  who  sold  oranges  in  Axby,  and  a  host  of 
others.  Nobody  hindered  them  from  going 
away,  and  they  seemed  to  be  pleading  with  him 
to  come  too.  There  was  danger  in  the  place; 
something  was   going   to   happen  in  that  big 

256 


i 


BASILISSA 

room,  and  if  by  that  time  he  was  not  gone  there 
would  be  mischief.  But  it  was  quite  clear  to 
him  that  he  could  not  go.  He  must  stop  there, 
with  the  wood  smoke  in  his  nostrils,  and  await 
the  advent  of  a  terrible  Something.  But  he  was 
never  quite  sure  of  the  nature  of  the  compulsion. 
He  had  a  notion  that  if  he  made  a  rush  for  the 
door  at  Uncle  Appleby's  heels  he  would  be  al- 
lowed to  escape,  but  that  somehow  he  would  be 
behaving  badly.  Anyhow,  the  place  put  him 
into  a  sweat  of  fright,  and  Mrs  Ganthony 
looked  darkly  at  him  in  the  morning.  ^ 

Vernon  was  nine  before  this  odd  spring  dream 
began  to  take  definite  shape — at  least  he  thinks 
he  must  have  been  about  that  age.  The  dream- 
stage  was  emptying.  There  was  nobody  in  the 
room  now  but  himself,  and  he  saw  its  details  a 
little  more  clearly.  It  was  not  any  apartment  in 
the  modern  magnificence  of  Severns.  Rather  it 
looked  like  one  of  the  big  old  panelled  cham- 
bers which  the  boy  remembered  from  visits  to 
Midland  country  houses,  where  he  had  arrived 
after  dark  and  had  been  put  to  sleep  in  a  great 
bed  in  a  place  lit  with  dancing  firelight.  In  the 
morning  it  had  looked  only  an  ordinary  big 
room,  but  at  that  hour  of  the  evening  it  had 

257 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

seemed  an  enchanted  citadel.  The  dreamroom 
was  not  unlike  these,  for  there  was  the  scent  of  a 
wood  fire  and  there  were,  dancing  shadows,  but 
he  could  not  see  clearly  the  walls  or  the  ceiling, 
and  there  was  no  bed.  In  one  corner  was  a  door 
which  led  to  the  outer  world,  and  through  this 
he  knew  that  he  might  on  no  account  pass.  An- 
other door  faced  him,  and  he  knew  that  he  had 
only  to  turn  the  handle  and  enter  it.  But  he  did 
not  want  to,  for  he  understood  quite  clearly  what 
was  beyond.  There  was  another  room  like  the 
first  one,  but  he  knew  nothing  about  it,  except 
that  opposite  the  entrance  another  door  led  out 
of  it.  Beyond  was  a  third  chamber,  and  so  on 
interminably.  There  seemed  to  the  boy  no  end 
to  this  fantastic  suite.  He  thought  of  it  as  a 
great  snake  of  masonry,,  winding  up  hill  and 
down  dale  away  to  the  fells  or  the  sea.  Yes,  but 
there  was  an  end.  Somewhere  far  away  in  one 
of  the  rooms  was  a  terror  waiting  on  him,  or,  as 
he  feared,  coming  towards  him.  Even  now  it 
might  be  flitting  from  room  to  room,,  every  min- 
ute bringing  its  soft  tread  nearer  to  the  chamber 
of  the  wood  fire. 

About  this  time  of  life  the  dream  was  an  un- 
mitigated horror.    Once  it  came  while  he  was  ill 
with  a  childish  fever,  and  it  sent  his  temperature 
f  258    ^. 


I 


BASILISSA 

up  to  a  point  which  brought  Dr  Moreton  gal- 
loping from  Axby.  In  his  waking  hours  he  did 
not,  as  a  rule,  remember  it  clearly;  but  during 
the  fever,  asleep  and  awake,  that  sinuous  build- 
ing, one  room  thick,  with  each  room  opening 
from  the  other,  was  never  away  from  his 
thoughts.  It  fretted  him  to  think  that  outside 
were  the  cheerful  moors  where  he  hunted  for 
plovers'  eggs,  and  that  only  a  thin  wall  of  stone 
kept  him  from  pleasant  homely  things.  The 
thought  used  to  comfort  him  for  a  moment  when 
he  was  awake,  but  in  the  dream  it  never  came 
near  him.  Asleep,  the  whole  world  seemed  one 
suite  of  rooms,  and  he,  a  forlorn  little  prisoner, 
doomed  to  wait  grimly  on  the  slow  coming 
through  the  many  doors  of  a  Fear  which  tran- 
scended word  and  thought. 

He  w^as  a  silent,  self-absorbed  boy,  and  though 
the  fact  of  his  nightmares  was  patent  to  the  lit- 
tle household,  the  details  remained  locked  in  his 
heart.  Not  even  to  Uncle  Appleby  would  he  tell 
them  when  that  gentleman,  hurriedly  kind,  came 
down  to  visit  his  convalescent  ward.  His  ill- 
ness made  Vernon  grow,  and  he  shot  up  into 
a  lanky,  leggy  boy — weakly,  too,  till  the  hills 
tautened  his  sinews  again.  His  Greek  blood — 
his  grandmother  had  been  a   Karolides — had 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

given  him  a  face  curiously  like  the  young  Byron, 
with  a  finely-cut  brow  and  nostrils,  and  hauteur 
in  the  full  lips.  But  Vernon  had  no  Byronic 
pallor,  for  his  upland  home  kept  him  sunburnt 
and  weather-beaten,  and  below  his  straight 
Greek  brows  shone  a  pair  of  grey  and  steadfast 
and  very  English  eyes. 

He  was  about  fifteen — so  he  thinks — when  he 
made  the  great  discovery.  The  dream  had  be- 
come almost  a  custom  now.  It  came  in  April  at 
Severns  during  the  Easter  holidays — a  night's 
discomfort  (it  was  now  scarcely  more)  in  the 
rush  and  glory  of  the  spring  fishing.  There  was 
a  moment  of  the  old  wild  heart-fluttering;  but 
a  boy's  fancy  is  quickly  dulled,  and  the  endless 
corridors  were  now  more  of  a  prison  than  a 
witch's  ante-chamber.  By  this  time,  with  the 
help  of  his  diary,  he  had  fixed  the  date  of  the 
dream:  it  came  regularly  on  the  night  of  the 
first  Monday  of  April.  Now  the  year  I  speak 
of  he  had  been  on  a  long  expedition  into  the  hills, 
and  had  stridden  homewards  at  a  steady  four 
miles  an  hour  among  the  gleams  and  shadows  of 
an  April  twilight.  He  was  alone  at  Severns,  so 
he  had  his  supper  in  the  big  library,  where  af- 
terwards he  sat  watching  the  leaping  flames  in 
the  open  stone  hearth.    He  was  very  weary,  and 

260 


BASILISSA 

sleep  fell  upon  him  in  his  chair.  He  found  him- 
self in  the  wood-smoke  chamber,  and  before  him 
the  door  leading  to  the  unknown.  But  it  was  no 
indefinite  fear  that  lay  beyond.  He  knew  clearly 
— though  how  he  knew  he  could  not  tell — that 
each  year  the  Something  came  one  room  nearer, 
and  was  even  now  but  ten  rooms  off.     In  ten 

years  his  own  door  would  open,  and  then 

He  woke  in  the  small  hours,  chilled  and 
mazed,  but  with  a  curious  new  assurance  in  his 
heart.  Hitherto  the  nightmare  had  left  him  in 
gross  terror,  unable  to  endure  the  prospect  of  its 
recurrence,  till  the  kindly  forgetfulness  of  youth 
had  soothed  him.  But  now,  though  his  nerves 
were  tense  with  fright,  he  perceived  that  there 
was  a  limit  to  the  mystery.  Some  day  it  must  de- 
clare itself,  and  fight  on  equal  terms.  As  he 
thought  over  the  matter  in  the  next  few  days  he 
had  the  sense  of  being  forewarned  and  prepared 
for  some  great  test  of  courage.  The  notion  ex- 
hilarated as  much  as  it  frightened  him.  Late  at 
night,  or  on  soft  dripping  days,  or  at  any  mo- 
ment of  lessened  vitality,  he  would  bitterly  wish 
that  he  had  been  born  an  ordinary  mortal.  But 
on  a  keen  morning  of  frost,  when  he  rubbed  him- 
self warm  after  a  cold  tub,  or  at  high  noon  of 
summer,   the  adventure  of   the  dream  almost 

261 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

pleased  him.  Unconsciously  he  braced  himself 
to  a  harder  discipline.  His  fitness,  moral  and 
physical,  became  his  chief  interest,  for  reasons 
which  would  have  been  unintelligible  to  his 
friends  and  more  so  to  his  masters.  He  passed 
through  school  an  aloof  and  splendid  figure, 
magnificently  athletic,  with  a  brain  as  well  as  a 
perfect  body — a  good  fellow  in  everybody's 
opinion,  but  a  grave  one.  He  had  no  intimates, 
and  never  shared  the  secret  of  the  spring  dream. 
For  some  reason  which  he  could  not  tell,  he 
would  have  burned  his  hand  off  rather  than 
breathe  a  hint  of  it.  Pure  terror  absolves  from 
all  conventions  and  demands  a  confidant,  so  ter- 
ror, I  think,  must  have  largely  departed  from 
the  nightmare  as  he  grew  older.  Fear,  indeed, 
remained,  and  awe  and  disquiet,  but  these  are 
human  things,  whereas  terror  is  of  hell. 

Had  he  told  any  one,  he  would  no  doubt  have 
become  self-conscious  and  felt  acutely  his  dif- 
ference from  other  people.  As  it  was,  he  was  an 
ordinary  schoolboy,  much  beloved,  and,  except 
at  odd  moments,  unaware  of  any  brooding 
destiny.  As  he  grew  up  and  his  ambition  awoke, 
the  moments  when  he  remembered  the  dream 
were  apt  to  be  disagreeable,  for  a  boy's  am- 
bitions are  strictly  conventional  and  his  soul  re- 

262 


BASILISSA 

volts  at  the  abnormal.  By  the  time  he  was  ready 
for  the  University  he  wanted  above  all  things  to 
run  the  mile  a  second  faster  than  any  one  else, 
and  had  vague  hopes  of  exploring  wild  countries. 
For  most  of  the  year  he  lived  with  these  hopes 
and  was  happy;  then  came  April,  and  for  a  short 
season  he  was  groping  in  dark  places.  Before 
and  after  each  dream  he  was  in  a  mood  of  ex- 
asperation ;  but  when  it  came  he  plunged  into  a 
diiferent  atmosphere,  and  felt  the  quiver  of  fear 
and  the  quick  thrill  of  expectation.  One  year,  in 
the  unsettled  moods  of  nineteen,  he  made  an  at- 
tempt to  avoid  it.  He  and  three  others  were  on 
a  walking  tour  in  Brittany  in  gusty  spring 
weather,  and  came  late  one  evening  to  an  inn 
by  an  estuary  where  seagulls  clattered  about  the 
windows.  Youth-like  they  ordered  a  great  and 
foolish  feast,  and  sat  all  night  round  a  bowl  of 
punch,  while  school  songs  and  ^'John  Peel"  con- 
tended with  the  dirling  of  the  gale.  At  daylight 
they  took  the  road  again,  without  having  closed 
an  eye,  and  Vernon  told  himself  that  he  was  rid 
of  his  incubus.  He  wondered  at  the  time  why  he 
was  not  more  cheerful.  Next  April  he  was  at 
Severns,  reading  hard,  and  on  the  first  Monday 
of  the  month  he  went  to  bed  with  scarcely  a 
thought  of  what  that  night  used  to  mean.    The 

263 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

dream  did  not  fail  him.  Once  more  he  was  in 
the  chamber  with  the  wood  fire ;  once  again  he 
was  peering  at  the  door  and  wondering  with 
tremulous  heart  what  lay  beyond.  For  the 
Something  had  come  nearer  by  two  rooms,  and 
was  now  only  five  doors  away.  He  wrote  in  his 
diary  at  that  time  some  lines  from  Keats'  *In- 
dian  Maid's  Song': — 

"I  would  deceive  her, 
And  so  leave  her, 
But  ah !  she  is  so  constant  and  so  kind." 

And  there  is  a  mark  of  exclamation  against  the 
^^she,"  as  if  he  found  some  irony  in  it. 

From  that  day  the  boy  in  him  died.  The 
dream  would  not  suffer  itself  to  be  forgotten.  It 
moulded  his  character  and  determined  his  plans 
like  the  vow  of  the  young  Hannibal  at  the  altar. 
He  had  forgotten  now  either  to  fear  or  to  hope; 
the  thing  was  part  of  him,  like  his  vigorous 
young  body,  his  slow  kindliness,  his  patient  cour- 
age. He  left  Oxford  at  twenty-two  with  a 
prodigious  reputation  which  his  remarkable 
athletic  record  by  no  means  explained.  All  men 
liked  him,  but  no  one  knew  him ;  he  had  a  thou- 
sand acquaintances  and  a  hundred  friends,  but 
no  comrade.     There  was  a  sense  of  brooding 

264 


BASILISSA 

power  about  him  which  attracted  and  repelled 
his  little  world.  No  one  forecast  any  special 
career  for  him;  indeed,  it  seemed  almost  dis- 
respectful to  condescend  upon  such  details.  It 
was  not  what  Vernon  would  do  that  fired  the 
imagination  of  his  fellows,  but  what  they  dimly 
conceived  that  he  already  was.  I  remember  my 
first  sight  of  him  about  that  time,  a  tall  young 
man  in  the  corner  of  a  club  smoking-room,  with 
a  head  like  Apollo's  and  eyes  which  received 
much  but  gave  nothing.  I  guessed  at  once  that 
he  had  foreign  blood  in  him,  not  from  any  odd- 
ness  of  colouring  or  feature  but  from  his  silken 
reserve.  We  of  the  North  are  angular  in  our 
silences ;  we  have  not  learned  the  art  of  gracious 
reticence. 

His  twenty-third  April  was  spent  in  a  hut  on 
the  Line,  somewhere  between  the  sources  of  the 
Congo  and  the  Nile,  in  the  trans-African  ex- 
pedition when  Waldemar  found  the  new  variety 
of  okapi.  The  following  April  I  was  in  his 
company  in  a  tent  far  up  on  the  shoulder  of  a 
Kashmir  mountain.  On  the  first  Monday  of  the 
month  we  had  had  a  heavy  day  after  ovis,  and 
that  night  I  was  asleep  almost  before  my  weary 
limbs  were  tucked  into  my  kaross.  I  knew  noth- 
ing of  Vernon's  dream,  but  next  morning  I  re- 

265 


m 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOL 

member  that  I  remarked  a  certain  heaviness  of 
eye,  and  wondered  idly  if  the  frame  of  this 
Greek  divinity  was  as  tough  as  it  was  shapely. 

II 

Next  year  Vernon  left  England  early  in  March. 
He  had  resolved  to  visit  again  his  grandmother's 
country  and  to  indulge  his  passion  for  cruising 
in  new  waters. 

His  20-ton  yawl  was  sent  as  deck  cargo  to 
Patras,  while  he  followed  by  way  of  Venice. 
He  brought  one  man  with  him  from  Wyvenhoe, 
a  lean  gipsy  lad  called  Martell,  and  for  his  other 
hand  he  found  an  Epirote  at  Corfu,  who  bore  a 
string  of  names  that  began  with  Constantine. 
From  Patras  with  a  west  wind  they  made  good 
sailing  up  the  Gulf  of  Corinth,  and,  passing 
through  the  Canal,  came  in  the  last  days  of 
March  to  the  Piraeus.  In  that  place  of  polyglot 
speech,  whistling  engines,  and  the  odour  of  gas- 
works, they  delayed  only  for  water  and  supplies, 
and  presently  had  rounded  Sunium,  and  were 
beating  up  the  Euripus  with  the  Attic  hills  ris- 
ing sharp  and  clear  in  the  spring  sunlight.  Ver- 
non had  no  plans.  It  was  a  joy  to  him  to  be 
alone  with  the  racing  seas  and  the  dancing  winds, 
to  scud  past  little  headlands,  pink  and  white  with 

266 


BASILISSA 

blossom,  or  to  lie  of  a  night  in  some  hidden  bay 
beneath  the  thymy  crags.  It  was  his  habit  on  his 
journeys  to  discard  the  clothes  of  civilisation. 
In  a  blue  jersey  and  old  corduroy  trousers,  bare- 
headed and  barefooted,  he  steered  his  craft  and 
waited  on  the  passing  of  the  hours.  Like  an 
acolyte  before  the  temple  gate,  he  believed  him- 
self to  be  on  the  threshold  of  a  new  life. 

Trouble  began  under  the,  snows  of  Pelion  as 
they  turned  the  north  end  of  Eubcea.  On  the 
morning  of  the  first  Monday  in  April  the  light 
west  winds  died  away,  and  sirocco  blew  harshly 
from  the  south.  By  midday  it  was  half  a  gale, 
and  in  those  yeasty  shallow  seas  with  an  iron 
coast  on  the  port  the  prospect  looked  doubtful. 
Tlie  nearest  harbour  was  twenty  miles  distant, 
and  as  no  one  of  the  crew  had  been  there  before 
it  was  a  question  if  they  could  make  it  by  night- 
fall. With  the  evening  the  gale  increased,  and 
Constantine  advised  a  retreat  from  the  maze  of 
rocky  islands  to  the  safer  deeps  of  the  ^gean.  It 
was  a  hard  night  for  the  three,  and  there  was  no 
chance  of  sleep.  More  by  luck  than  skill  they 
escaped  the  butt  of  Skiathos,  and  the  first  light 
found  them  far  to  the  east  among  the  long  seas 
of  the  North  iEgean,  well  on  the  way  to  Lemnos. 
By  eight  o'clock  the  gale  had  blown  itself  out, 

267 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

and  three  soaked  and  chilly  mortals  relaxed 
their  vigil.  Soon  bacon  was  frizzling  on  the 
cuddy-stove,  and  hot  coffee  and  dry  clothes  re- 
stored them  to  comfort. 

The  sky  cleared,  and  in  bright  sunlight,  with 
the  dregs  of  the  gale  behind  him,  Vernon  stood 
in  for  the  mainland,  where  the  white  crest  of 
Olympus  hung  in  the  northern  heavens.  In  the 
late  afternoon  they  came  into  a  little  bay  carved 
from  the  side  of  a  high  mountain.  The  slopes 
were  gay  with  flowers,  yellow  and  white  and 
scarlet,  and  the  young  green  of  crops  showed  in 
the  clearings.  Among  the  thyme  a  flock  of  goats 
was  browsing,  shepherded  by  a  little  girl  in  a 
saffron  skirt,  who  sang  shrilly  in  snatches.  Mid- 
way in  the  bay  and  just  above  the  anchorage  rose 
a  great  white  building,  which  showed  to  sea- 
ward a  blank  white  wall  pierced  with  a  few  nar- 
row windows.  At  first  sight  Vernon  took  it  for 
a  monastery,  but  a  look  through  the  glasses  con- 
vinced him  that  its  purpose  was  not  religious. 
Once  it  had  been  fortified,  and  even  now  a  broad 
causeway  ran  between  it  and  the  sea,  which 
looked  as  if  it  had  once  held  guns.  The  archi- 
tecture was  a  jumble,  showing  here  the  enriched 
Gothic  of  Venice  and  there  the  straight  lines 
and  round  arches  of  the  East.    It  had  once,  he 

268 


BASILISSA 

conjectured,  been  the  hold  of  some  Venetian  sea- 
king,  then  the  palace  of  a  Turkish  conqueror, 
and  now  was,  perhaps,  the  homely  manor-house 
of  this  pleasant  domain. 

A  fishing-boat  was  putting  out  from  the  shore. 
He  hailed  its  occupant  and  asked  who  owned  the 
castle. 

The  man  crossed  himself  and  spat  overboard. 
*4]asilissa,"  he  said,  and  turned  his  eyes  sea- 
ward. 

Vernon  called  Constantine  from  the  bows  and 
asked  him  what  the  word  might  mean.  The 
Epirote  crossed  himself  also  before  he  spoke. 
"It  is  the  Lady  of  the  Land,"  he  said,  in  a 
hushed  voice.  "It  is  the  great  witch  who  is  the 
Devil's  bride.  In  old  days  in  spring  they  made 
sacrifice  to  her,  but  they  say  her  power  is  dying 
now.  In  my  country  we  do  not  speak  her  name, 
but  elsewhere  they  call  her  'Queen.' "  The 
man's  bluff  sailorly  assurance  had  disappeared, 
and  as  Vernon  stared  at  him  in  bewilderment  he 
stammered  and  averted  his  eyes. 

By  supper-time  he  had  recovered  himself,  and 
the  weather-beaten  three  made  such  a  meal  as 
befits  those  who  have  faced  danger  together. 
Afterwards  Vernon,  as  was  his  custom,  sat  alone 
in  the  stern,  smoking  and  thinking  his  thoughts. 

269 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

He  wrote  up  his  diary  with  a  ship's  lantern  be- 
side him,  while  overhead  the  starless  velvet  sky 
seemed  to  hang  low  and  soft  like  an  awning. 
Little  fires  burned  on  the  shore  at  which  folk 
were  cooking  food — he  could  hear  their  voices, 
and  from  the  keep  one  single  lit  window  made 
an  eye  in  the  night. 

He  had  leisure  now  for  the  thought  which  had 
all  day  been  at  the  back  of  his  mind.  The  night 
had  passed  and  there  had  been  no  dream.  The 
adventure  for  which  he  had  prepared  himself 
had  vanished  into  the  ^gean  tides.  He  told 
himself  that  it  was  a  relief,  that  an  old  folly  was 
over,  but  he  knew  in  his  heart  that  he  was  bit- 
terly disappointed.  The  fates  had  prepared  the 
stage  and  rung  up  the  curtain  without  provid- 
ing the  play.  He  had  been  fooled,  and  some- 
how the  zest  and  savour  of  life  had  gone  from 
him.  No  man  can  be  strung  high  and  then  find 
his  preparation  idle  without  suffering  a  cruel 
recoil. 

As  he  scribbled  idly  in  his  diary  he  found 
some  trouble  about  dates.  Down  in  his  bunk 
was  a  sheaf  of  Greek  papers  bought  at  the 
Piraeus  and  still  unlooked  at.  He  fetched  them 
up  and  turned  them  over  with  a  growing  mysti- 
fication.   There  was  something  very  odd  aboxit 

270 


BASILISSA 

the  business.  One  gets  hazy  about  dates  at  sea, 
but  he  could  have  sworn  that  he  had  made  no 
mistake.  Yet  here  it  was  down  in  black  and 
white,  for  there  was  no  question  about  the  num- 
ber of  days  since  he  left  the  Piraeus.  The  day 
was  not  Tuesday,  as  he  had  believed,  but  Mon- 
day, the  first  Monday  of  April. 

He  stood  up  with  a  beating  heart  and  that 
sense  of  unseen  hands  which  comes  to  all  men 
once  or  twice  in  their  lives.  The  night  was  yet 
to  come,  and  with  it  the  end  of  the  dream.  Sud- 
denly he  was  glad,  absurdly  glad;  he  could  al- 
most have  wept  with  the  joy  of  it.  And  then  he 
was  conscious  for  the  first  time  of  the  strange- 
ness of  the  place  in  which  he  had  anchored.  The 
night  was  dark  over  him  like  a  shell,  enclosing 
the  half-moon  of  bay  and  its  one  lit  dwelling. 
The  great  hills,  unseen  but  felt,  ran  up  to  snows, 
warding  it  off  from  a  profane  world.  His 
nerves  tingled  with  a  joyful  anticipation.  Some- 
thing, some  wonderful  thing,  was  coming  to  him 
out  of  the  darkness. 

Under  an  impulse  for  which  he  could  give  no 
reason,  he  called  Constantine  and  gave  his  or- 
ders. Let  him  be  ready  to  sail  at  any  moment — 
a  possible  thing,  for  there  was  a  light  breeze  off 
shore.    Also  let  the  yacht's  dinghy  be  ready  in 

271 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

case  he  wanted  it.  Then  Vernon  sat  himself 
down  again  in  the  stern  beside  the  lantern,  and 
waited.  .  .  . 

He  was  dreaming,  and  did  not  hear  the  sound 
of  oars  or  the  grating  of  a  boat  alongside.  Sud- 
denly he  found  a  face  looking  at  him  in  the 
ring  of  lamplight — an  old  bearded  face  curi- 
ously wrinkled.  The  eyes,  which  were  grave 
and  penetrating,  scanned  him  for  a  second  or 
two,  and  then  a  voice  spoke, — 

"Will  the  Signor  come  with  me?  There  is 
work  for  him  to  do  this  night." 

Vernon  rose  obediently.  He  had  waited  for 
this  call  these  many  years,  and  he  was  there  to 
answer  it.  He  went  below  and  put  a  loaded  re- 
volver in  his  trouser^pocket,  and  then  dropped 
over  the  yacht's  side  into  a  cockleshell  of  a  boat. 
The  messenger  took  the  oars  and  rowed  for  the 
point  of  light  on  shore. 

A  middle-aged  woman  stood  on  a  rock  above 
the  tide,  holding  a  small  lantern.  In  its  thin 
flicker  he  made  out  a  person  with  the  air  and 
dress  of  a  French  maid.  She  cast  one  glance  at 
Vernon,  and  then  turned  wearily  to  the  other. 
"Fool,  Mitri!"  she  said.  "You  have  brought  a 
peasant." 

272 


BASILISSA 

''Nay,"  said  the  old  man,  "he  is  no  peasant. 
He  is  a  Signor,  and  as  I  judge,  a  man  of  his 
hands." 

The  woman  passed  the  light  of  her  lantern 
over  Vernon's  form  and  face.  "His  dress  is  a 
peasant's,  but  such  clothes  may  be  a  nobleman's 
whim.    I  have  heard  it  of  the  English." 

"I  am  English,"  said  Vernon  in  French. 

She  turned  on  him  with  a  quick  movement  of 
relief. 

"You  are  English  and  a  gentleman?  But  I 
know  nothing  of  you,  only  that  you  have  come 
out  of  the  sea.  Up  in  the  House  we  women  are 
alone,  and  my  mistress  has  death  to  face,  or  a 
worse  than  death.  We  have  no  claim  on  you, 
and  if  you  give  us  your  service  it  means  danger 
— oh,  what  danger!  The  boat  is  waiting.  You 
have  time  to  go  back  and  go  away  and  forget 
that  you  have  seen  this  accursed  place.  But,  O 
Monsieur,  if  you  hope  for  Heaven  and  have  pity 
on  a  defenceless  angel,  you  will  not  leave  us." 

"I  am  ready,"  said  Vernon. 

"God's  mercy,"  she  sighed,  and,  seizing  his 
arm,  drew  him  up  the  steep  causeway,  while  the 
old  man  went  ahead  with  the  lantern.  Now  and 
then  she  cast  anxious  glances  to  the  right  where 
the  little  fires  of  the  fishers  twinkled  along  the 

273 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

shore.  Then  came  a  point  when  the  three  en- 
tered a  narrow  uphill  road,  where  rocky  steps 
had  been  cut  in  a  tamarisk  thicket.  She  spoke 
low  in  French  to  Vernon's  ear, — 

"My  mistress  is  the  last  of  her  line,  you  figure ; 
a  girl  with  a  wild  estate  and  a  father  long  dead. 
She  is  good  and  gracious,  as  I  who  have  tended 
her  can  witness,  but  she  is  young  and  cannot 
govern  the  wolves  who  are  the  men  of  these 
parts.  They  have  a  long  hatred  of  her  house, 
and  now  they  haVe  it  rumoured  that  she  is  a 
witch  and  blights  the  crops  and  slays  the 
children.  No  one  will  look  at  her;  the  priest — 
for  they  are  all  in  the  plot — signs  himself  and 
crosses  the  road;  the  little  ones  run  screaming  to 
their  mothers.  Once,  twice,  they  have  cursed 
our  threshold  and  made  the  blood  mark  on  the 
door.  For  two  years  we  have  been  prisoners  in 
the  House,  and  only  Mitri  is  true.  They  name 
her  Basilissa,  meaning  the  Queen  of  Hell,  whom 
the  ancients  called  Proserpine.  There  is  no  babe 
but  will  faint  with  fright  if  it  casts  eyes  on  her, 
and  she  as  mild  and  innocent  as  Mother 
Mary.  .  .  ." 

The  woman  stopped  at  a  little  door  in  a  high 
wall  of  masonry.  ''Nay,  wait  and  hear  me  out. 
It  is  better  that  you  hear  the  tale  from  me  than 

274 


i 


BASILISSA 

from  her.  Mitri  has  the  gossip  of  the  place 
through  his  daughter's  husband,  and  the  word 
has  gone  round  to  burn  the  witch  out.  The 
winter  in  the  hills  has  been  cruel,  and  they  blame 
their  sorrow  on  her.  The  dark  of  the  moon  in 
April  is  the  time  fixed,  for  they  say  that  a  witch 
has  power  only  in  moonlight.  This  is  the  night, 
and  down  on  the  shore  the  fishers  are  gathered. 
The  men  from  the  hills  are  in  the  higher  woods." 

'^Have  they  a  leader?"  Vernon  asked. 

^'A  leader?"  her  voice  echoed  shrilly.  "But 
that  is  the  worst  of  our  terrors.  There  is  one 
Vlastos,  a  lord  in  the  mountains,  who  saw  my 
mistress  a  year  ago  as  she  looked  from  the 
balcony  at  the  Swallow-singing,  and  was  filled 
with  a  passion  for  her.  He  has  persecuted  her 
since  with  his  desires.  He  is  a  king  among 
these  savages,  being  himself  a  very  wolf  in  man's 
flesh.  We  have  denied  him,  but  he  persists,  and 
this  night  he  announces  that  he  comes  for  an  an- 
swer. He  offers  to  save  her  if  she  will  trust 
him,  but  what  is  the  honour  of  his  kind?  He  is 
like  a  brute  out  of  a  cave.  It  were  better  for 
my  lady  to  go  to  God  in  the  fire  than  to  meet  all 
Hell  in  his  arms.  But  this  night  we  must  choose, 
unless  you  prove  a  saviour.^' 

^^Did  you  see  my  boat  anchor  in  the  bay?" 
275 


*    THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

yernon  asked,  though  he  already  knew  the  an- 
swer. 

"But  no,"  she  said.  "We  live  only  on  the 
landward  side  of  the  House.  My  lady  told  me 
that  God  would  send  a  man  to  our  aid.  And  I 
bade  Mitri  fetch  him." 

The  door  was  unlocked  an^the  three  climbed 
a  staircase  which  seemed  to  follow  the  wall  of 
a  round  tower.  Presently  they  came  into  a  stone 
hall  with  curious  hangings  like  the  old  banners 
in  a  church*  From  the  open  flame  of  the  lantern 
another  was  kindled,  and  the  light  showed  a 
desolate  place  with  crumbling  mosaics  on  the 
floor  and  plaster  dropping  from  the  cornices. 
Through  another  corridor  they  went,  where  the 
air  blew  warmer  and  there  was  that  indefinable 
scent  which  comes  from  human  habitation. 
Then  came  a  door  which  the  woman  held  open 
for  Vernon  to  enter.  "Wait  there.  Monsieur," 
she  said.    "My  mistress  will  come  to  you." 

It  was  his  own  room,  where  annually  he  had 
waited  with  a  fluttering  heart  since  he  was  a 
child  at  Severns.  A  fire  of  wood — some  resinous 
thing  like  juniper — burned  on  the  hearth,  and 
spirals  of  blue  smoke  escaped  the  stone  chimney 
and  filled  the  air  with  their  pungent  fragrance. 
On  a  Spanish  cabinet  stood  an  antique  silver 

276 


BASILISSA 

lamp,  and  there  was  a  great  blue  Chinese  vase 
filled  with  spring  flowers.  Soft  Turcoman  rugs 
covered  the  wooden  floor — Vernon  noted  every 
detail,  for  never  before  had  he  been  able  to  see 
his  room  clearly.  A  woman  had  lived  here,  for 
an  embroidery  frame  lay  on  a  table  and  there 
were  silken  cushions  on  the  low  divans.  And 
facing  him  in  the  other  wall  there  was  a  door. 

In  the  old  days  he  had  regarded  it  with  vague 
terror  in  his  soul.  Now  he  looked  at  it  with  the 
hungry  gladness  with  which  a  traveller  sees 
again  the  familiar  objects  of  home.  The  hour 
of  his  destiny  had  struck.  The  thing  for  which! 
he  had  trained  himself  in  body  and  spirit  was 
about  to  reveal  itself  in  that  doorway.  .  .  . 

It  opened,  and  a  girl  entered.  She  was  tall 
and  very  slim,  and  moved  with  the  free  grace 
of  a  boy.  She  trod  the  floor  like  one  walking  in 
spring  meadows.  Her  little  head  on  the  flower- 
like neck  was  bent  sideways  as  if  she  were  listen- 
ing, and  her  eyes  had  the  strange  disquieting  in- 
nocence of  a  child's.  Yet  she  was  a  grown 
woman,  nobly  made,  and  lithe  and  supple  as 
Artemis  herself  when  she  ranged  with  her 
maidens  through  the  moonlit  glades.  Her  face 
had  the  delicate  pallor  of  pure  health,  and  above 
it  the  masses  of  dark  hair  were  bound  with  a  thin 

277 


1 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

gold  circlet.  She  wore  a  gown  of  some  soft 
white  stuff,  and  had  thrown  over  it  a  cloak  of 
russet  furs. 

For  a  second — or  so  it  seemed  to  Vernon — she 
looked  at  him  as  he  stood  tense  and  expectant 
like  a  runner  at  the  start.  Then  the  hesitation 
fled  from  her  face.  She  ran  to  him  with  the 
confidence  of  a  child  who  has  waited  long  for  the 
coming  of  a  friend  and  has  grown  lonely  and 
fearful.  She  gave  him  both  her  hands  and  in  her 
tall  pride  looked  him  full  in  the  eyes.  "You 
have  come,"  she  sighed  happily.  "I  did  not 
doubt  it.  They  told  me  there  was  no  help,  but, 
you  see,  they  did  not  know  about  you.  That 
was  my  own  secret.  The  Monster  had  nearly 
gobbled  me,  Perseus,  but  of  course  you  could 
not  come  quicker.  And  now  you  will  take  me 
away  with  you?  See,  I  am  ready.  And  Elise 
will  come  too,  and  old  Mitri,  for  they  could  not 
live  without  me.  We  must  hurry,  for  the 
Monster  is  very  near." 

In  that  high  moment  of  romance,  when  young 
love  had  burst  upon  him  like  spring,  Vernon 
retained  his  odd  discipline  of  soul.  The  adven- 
ture of  the  dream  could  not  be  satisfied  by 
flight,  even  though  his  companion  was  a  goddess, 

278 


BASILISSA 

'We  will  gOj  Andromeda,  but  not  yet.  I  have 
something  to  say  to  the  Monster." 

She  broke  into  a  ripple  of  laughter.  "Yes, 
that  is  the  better  way.  Mitri  will  admit  him 
alone,  and  he  will  think  to  find  us  women.  But 
you  will  be  here  and  you  will  speak  to  him." 
Then  her  eyes  grew  solemn.  "He  is  very  cruel, 
Perseus,  and  he  is  full  of  evil.  He  may  de- 
vour us  both.    Let  us  be  gone  before  he  comes." 

It  was  Vernon's  turn  to  laugh.  At  the  mo- 
ment no  enterprise  seemed  too  formidable,  and 
a  price  must  be  paid  for  this  far-away  princess. 
And  even  as  he  laughed  the  noise  of  a  great  bell 
clanged  throught  the  house. 

Mitri  stole  in  with  a  scared  face,  and  it  was 
from  Vernon  that  he  took  his  orders.  "Speak 
them  fair,  but  let  one  man  enter  and  no  more. 
Bring  him  here,  and  see  that  the  gate  is  barred 
behind  him.  After  that  make  ready  for  the 
road."  Then  to  the  girl :  "Take  off  your  cloak 
and  wait  here  as  if  you  were  expecting  him.  I 
will  stand  behind  the  screen.  Have  no  fear,  for 
I  will  have  him  covered,  and  I  will  shoot  him 
like  a  dog  if  he  lays  a  finger  on  you." 

From  the  shelter  of  the  screen  Vernon  saw  the 
door  open  and  a  man  enter.  He  was  a  big  fellow 
of    the    common    mountain    type,    gorgeously 

279 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

dressed  in  a  uniform  of  white  and  crimson,  with 
boots  of  yellow  untanned  leather,  and  a  beltful 
of  weapons.  He  was  handsome  in  a  coarse  way, 
but  his  slanting  eyes  and  the  heavy  lips  scarcely 
hidden  by  the  curling  moustaches  were  ugly  and 
sinister.  He  smiled,  showing  his  white  teeth, 
and  spoke  hurriedly  in  the  guttural  Greek  of  the 
north.  The  girl  shivered  at  the  sound  of  his 
voice,  and  to  the  watcher  it  seemed  like  Pan 
pursuing  one  of  Dian's  nymphs. 

"You  have  no  choice,  my  Queen,"  he  was 
saying.  "I  have  a  hundred  men  at  the  gate  who 
will  do  my  bidding,  and  protect  you  against 
those  fools  of  villagers  till  you  are  safe  with  me 
at  Louko.  But  if  you  refuse  me  I  cannot  hold 
the  people.  They  will  burn  the  place  over  your 
head,  and  by  to-morrow's  morn  these  walls  will 
be  smouldering  ashes  with  your  fair  body  in  the 
midst  of  them." 

Then  his  wooing  became  rougher.  The  satyr 
awoke  in  his  passionate  eyes.  "Nay,  you  are 
mine,  whether  you  will  it  or  not.  I  and  my  folk 
will  carry  you  off  when  the  trouble  begins.  Take 
your  choice,  my  girl,  whether  you  will  go  with 
a  good  grace,  or  trussed  up  behind  a  servant. 
We  have  rough  ways  in  the  hills  with  ungracious 
wenches." 

280 


1 


BASILISSA 

*'!  am  going  away,"  she  whispered,  "but  not 
with  you !" 

The  man  laughed.  "Have  you  fetched  down 
friend  Michael  and  his  angels  to  help  you?  By 
Saint  John  the  Hunter,  I  would  I  had  a  rival.  I 
would  carve  him  prettily  for  the  sake  of  your 
sweet  flesh." 

Vernon  kicked  aside  the  screen.  "You  will 
have  your  chance,"  he  said.    "I  am  ready." 

Vlastos  stepped  back  with  his  hand  at  his  belt. 
"Who  in  the  deviPs  name  are  you?"  he  asked. 

'*One  who  would  dispute  the  lady  with  you," 
said  Vernon. 

The  man  had  recovered  his  confidence.  "I 
know  nothing  of  you  or  whence  you  come,  but 
to-night  I  am  merciful.  I  give  you  ten  seconds 
to  disappear.  If  not,  I  will  spit  you,  my  fine 
cock,  and  you  will  roast  in  this  oven." 

''Nevertheless  the  lady  goes  with  me,"  said 
Vernon,  smiling. 

Vlastos  plucked  a  whistle  from  his  belt,  but 
before  it  reached  his  mouth  he  was  looking  into 
the  barrel  of  Vernon's  revolver.  "Pitch  that 
thing  on  the  floor,"  came  the  command.  "Not 
there!  Behind  me!  Off  with  that  belt  and  give 
it  to  the  lady.    Quick,  my  friend." 

The  dancing  grey  eyes  dominated  the  sombre 
281 


I 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

black  ones.  Vlastos  flung  down  the  whistle, 
and  slowly  removed  the  belt  with  its  silver- 
mounted  pistols  and  its  brace  of  knives. 

^Tut  up  your  weapon,"  he  muttered,  "and 
fight  me  for  her,  as  a  man  should." 

"I  ask  nothing  better,"  said  Vernon,  and  he 
laid  his  revolver  in  the  girl's  lap. 

He  had  expected  a  fight  with  fists,  and  was  not 
prepared  for  what  followed.  Vlastos  sprang  at 
him  like  a  wild  beast  and  clasped  him  round  the 
waist.  He  was  swung  off  his  feet  in  a  grip  that 
seemed  more  than  human.  For  a  second  or  two 
he  swayed  to  and  fro,  recovered  himself,  and 
by  a  back-heel  stroke  forced  his  assailant  to  re- 
lax a  little.  Then,  locked  together  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  room,  the  struggle  began.  Dimly  out 
of  a  corner  of  his  eye  he  saw  the  girl  pick  up  the 
silver  lamp  and  stand  by  the  door  holding  it 
high. 

Vernon  had  learned  the  rudiments  of  wres- 
tling among  the  dalesmen  of  the  North,  but 
now  he  was  dealing  with  one  who  followed  no 
ordinary  methods.  It  was  a  contest  of  sheer 
physical  power.  Vlastos  was  a  stone  or  two 
heavier,  and  had  an  uncommon  length  of  arm; 
but  he  was  clumsily  made,  and  flabby  from  gross 
living.    Vernon  was  spare  and  hard  and  clean, 

282 


BASILISSA 

but  he  lacked  one  advantage — he  had  nevei 
striven  with  a  man  save  in  friendly  games,  and 
the  other  was  bred  to  kill.  For  a  minute  or  two 
they  swayed  and  stumbled,  while  Vernon  strove 
for  the  old  Westmorland  ^'inside  click."  Every 
second  brought  him  nearer  to  it,  while  the  other's 
face  was  pressed  close  to  his  shoulder. 

Suddenly  he  felt  a  sharp  pain.  Teeth  met  in 
his  flesh,  and  there  was  the  jar  and  shiver  of  a 
torn  muscle.  The  thing  sickened  him,  and  his 
grip  slackened.  In-a  moment  Vlastos  had  swung 
him  over  in  a  strangle-hold,  and  had  his  neck 
bent  almost  to  breaking. 

On  the  sickness  followed  a  revulsion  of  fierce 
anger.  He  was  contending  not  with  a  man,  but 
with  some  shaggy  beast  from  the  thicket.  The 
passion  brought  out  the  extra  power  which  is 
dormant  in  us  all  against  the  last  extremity. 
Two  years  before  he  had  been  mauled  by  a 
leopard  on  the  Congo,  and  had  clutched  its 
throat  with  his  hand  and  torn  the  life  out.  Such 
and  no  other  was  his  antagonist.  He  was  fight- 
ing with  one  who  knew  no  code,  and  would 
gouge  his  eyes  if  he  got  the  chance.  The  fear 
which  had  sickened  him  was  driven  out  by  fury. 
This  wolf  should  go  the  way  of  other  wolves 
who  dared  to  strive  with  man. 

283 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

By  a  mighty  effort  he  got  his  right  arm  free, 
and  though  his  own  neck  was  in  torture,  he 
forced  Vlastos'  chin  upward.  It  was  a  struggle 
of  sheer  endurance,  till  with  a  snarl  the  other 
slackened  his  pressure.  Vernon  slipped  from 
his  grasp,  gave  back  a  step,  and  then  leaped  for 
the  under-grip.  He  seemed  possessed  with  un- 
holy strength,  for  the  barrel  of  the  man  gave 
in  his  embrace.  A  rib  cracked,  and  as  they 
swayed  to  the  breast-stroke,  he  felt  the  breath  of 
his  opponent  coming  in  harsh  gasps.  It  was  the 
end,  for  with  a  twist  which  unlocked  his  arms 
he  swung  him  high,  and  hurled  him  towards  the 
fireplace.  The  head  crashed  on  the  stone  hearth, 
and  the  man  lay  stunned  among  the  blue  jets  of 
wood-smoke. 

Vernon  turned  dizzily  to  the  girl.  She  stood, 
statue-like,  with  the  lamp  in  her  hand,  and  be- 
side her  huddled  Mitri  and  Elise. 

*^Bring  ropes,"  he  cried  to  the  servants.  ^We 
will  truss  up  this  beast.  The  other  wolves  will 
find  him  and  learn  a  lesson."  He  bound  his 
legs  and  arms  and  laid  him  on  a  divan. 

The  fire  of  battle  was  still  in  his  eyes,  but  it 
faded  when  they  fell  upon  the  pale  girl.  A 
great  pity  and  tenderness  filled  him.  She  swayed 
to   his   arms,    and   her   head    dropped   on   his 

284 


BASILISSA 

shoulder.     He  picked  her  up  like  a  child,  and 
followed  the  servants  to  the  sea-stair. 

But  first  he  found  Vlastos'  whistle,  and  blew 
it  shrilly.  The  answer  was  a  furious  hammer- 
ing at  the  castle  door. 

Far  out  at  sea,  in  the  small  hours,  the  yacht 
sped  eastward  with  a  favouring  wind.  Behind 
in  the  vault  of  night  at  a  great  distance  shone  a 
point  of  brightness,  which  flickered  and  fell  as 
if  from  some  mighty  fire. 

The  two  sat  in  the  stern  in  that  first  rapture 
of  comradeship  which  has  no  words  to  fit  it. 
Her  head  lay  in  the  crook  of  his  arm,  and  she 
sighed  happily,  like  one  awakened  to  a  sum- 
mer's dawn  from  a  night  of  ill  dreams.  At  last 
he  spoke. 

"Do  you  know  that  I  have  been  looking  for 
you  for  twenty  years?" 

She  nestled  closer  to  him. 

'^And  I,"  she  said,  "have  been  waiting  on  you 
from  the  beginning  of  the  world." 


28j 


VII 


DIVUS  JOHNSTON 


"The  Emperor  assumed  the  title  of  Divus  or  Divine,  not 
of  his  own  desire,  but  because  it  was  forced  upon  him  by  a 
credulous  people." — Suetonius,  Lives  of  the  Casars. 

THIS  Story,  which  you  may  believe  or  not 
as  you  like,  was  told  me  by  my  friend  Mr 
Peter  Thomson  of  "Jessieville,"  Maxwell  Ave- 
nue, Strathbungo,  whom  I  believe  to  be  a  man 
incapable  of  mendacity,  or,  indeed,  of  imagina- 
tion. He  is  a  prosperous  and  retired  ship's  cap- 
tain, dwelling  in  the  suburbs  of  Glasgow,  who 
plays  two  rounds  of  golf  every  day  of  the  week, 
and  goes  twice  every  Sunday  to  a  pink,  new  U. 
F.  Church.  You  may  often  see  his  ample  figure, 
splendidly  habited  in  broadcloth  and  finished 
off  with  one  of  those  square  felt  hats  which  are 
the  Scottish  emblem  of  respectability,  moving 
sedately  by  Mrs  Thomson's  side  down  the  ave- 
nue of  "Balmorals"  and  "Bellevues"  where 
dwell  the  aristocracy  of  Strathbungo.     It  waii 

286 


DIVUS  JOHNSTON 

not  there  that  I  met  him,  however,  but  in  a 
Clyde  steamboat  going  round  the  Mull,  where 
I  spent  a  comfortless  night  on  my  way  to  a 
Highland  fishing.  It  was  blowing  what  he 
called  "a  wee  bit  o'  wind,"  and  I  could  not  face 
the  odorous  bunks  which  opened  on  the  dining- 
room.  Seated  abaft  the  funnel,  in  an  atmos- 
phere of  ham-and-eggs,  bilge,  and  fresh  western 
breezes,  he  revealed  his  heart  to  me,  and  this  I 
found  in  it. 

*' About  the  age  of  forty" — said  Mr  Thomson 
— ^^I  was  captain  of  the  steamer  Archibald  Mc- 
Kelvie,  1,700  tons  burthen,  belonging  to  Brock, 
Rattray,  and  Linklater,  of  Greenock.  We  were 
principally  engaged  in  the  China  trade,  but 
made  odd  trips  into  the  Malay  Archipelago  and 
once  or  twice  to  Australia.  She  was  a  handy  bit 
boat,  and  I'll  not  deny  that  I  had  many  mercies 
vouchsafed  to  me  when  I  was  her  skipper.  I 
raked  in  a  bit  of  salvage  now  and  then,  and  my 
trading  commission,  paid  regularly  into  the 
British  Linen  Bank  at  Maryhill,  was  mount- 
ing up  to  a  fairish  sum.  I  had  no  objection  to 
Eastern  parts,  for  I  had  a  good  constitution  and 
had  outgrown  the  daftnesses  of  youth.  The 
berth  suited  me  well,  I  had  a  decent  lot  for  ship's 

287 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD. 

company,  and  I  would  gladly  have  looked  for- 
ward to  spending  the  rest  of  my  days  by  the 
Archibald  McKelvie. 

"Providence,  however,  tRought  otherwise,  for 
He  was  preparing  a  judgment  against  that  ship 
like  the  kind  you  read  about  in  books.  We  were 
five  days  out  from  Singapore  shaping  our  course 
for  the  Philippines,  where  the  Americans  were 
then  fighting,  when  we  ran  into  a  queer  lown 
sea.  Not  a  breath  of  air  came  out  of  the  sky;  if 
you  kindled  a  match  the  flame  wouldna  leap,  but 
smouldered  like  touchwood;  and  every  man's 
body  ran  with  sweat  like  a  mill-lade.  I  kenned 
fine  we  were  in  for  the  terrors  of  hell,  but  I 
hadna  any  kind  of  notion  how  terrible  hell  could 
be.  First  came  a  wind  that  whipped  away  my 
funnel,  like  a  potato  peeling.  We  ran  before  it, 
and  it  was  like  the  sweegee  we  used  to  play  at 
when  we  were  laddies.  One  moment  the  muckle 
sea  would  get  up  on  its  hinder  end  and  look  at 
you,  and  the  next  you  were  looking  at  it  as  if  you 
were  on  the  top  of  Ben  Lomond  looking  down  on 
Luss.  Presently  I  saw  land  in  a  gap  of  the  water, 
a  land  with  great  blood-red  mountains,  and, 
thinks  I  to  myself,  if  we  ke&p  up  the  pace  this 
boat  of  mine  will  not  be  hindered  from  ending 
two  or  three  miles  inland  in  somebody's  kaii- 

288 


DIVUS  JOHNSTON 

yard.  I  was  just  wondering  how  we  would  get 
the  Archibald  McKelvie  back  to  her  native  ele- 
ment when  she  saved  me  the  trouble;  for  she  ran 
duxTit  on  some  kind  of  a  rock,  and  went  straight 
to  the  bottom. 

'*I  was  the  only  man  saved  alive,  and  if  you  ask 
me  how  it  happened  I  don't  know.  I  felt  my- 
self choking  in  a  whirlpool;  then  I  was  flung 
through  the  air  and  brought  down  with  a  smack 
into  deep  waters;  then  I  was  in  the  air  again, 
and  this  time  I  landed  amongst  sand  and  tree- 
trunks  and  got  a  bash  on  the  head  which  dozened 
my  senses. 

^When  I  came  to  it  was  morning,  and  the 
storm  had  abated.  I  was  lying  about  half-way 
up  a  beach  of  fine  white  sand,  for  the  wave  that 
had  carried  me  landwards  in  its  flow  had 
brought  me  some  of  the  road  back  in  its  ebb.  All 
round  me  was  a  sort  of  free-coup — trees  knocked 
to  matchwood,  dead  fish,  and  birds  and  beasts, 
and  some  boards  which  I  jaloused  came  from  the 
Archibald  McKelvie.  I  had  a  big  bump  on  my 
head,  but  otherwise  I  was  well  and  clear  in  my 
wits,  though  empty  in  the  stomach  and  very 
dowie  in  the  heart.  For  I  knew  something  about 
the  islands,  of  which  I  supposed  this  to  be  one. 
They  were  either  barren  wastes,  with  neither 

289 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

food  nor  water,  or  else  they  were  inhabited  by 
the  bloodiest  cannibals  of  the  archipelago.  It 
looked  as  if  my  choice  lay  between  having  noth- 
ing to  eat  and  being  eaten  myself. 

"I  got  up,  and,  after  returning  thanks  to  my 
Maker,  went  for  a  walk  in  the  woods.  They 
were  full  of  queer  painted  birds,  and  it  was  an 
awful  job  climbing  in  and  out  of  the  fallen  trees. 
By  and  by  I  came  into  an  open  bit  with  a  burn 
where  I  slockened  my  thirst.  It  cheered  me 
up,  and  I  was  just  beginning  to  think  that  this 
was  not  such  a  bad  island,  and  looking  to'  see  if 
I  could  find  anything  in  the  nature  of  cocoanuts, 
when  I  heard  a  whistle  like  a  steam-syren.  It 
was  some  sort  of  signal,  for  the  next  I  knew  I 
was  in  the  grip  of  a  dozen  savages,  my  arms  and 
feet  were  lashed  together,  and  I  was  being 
carried  swiftly  through  the  forest. 

"It  was  a  rough  journey,  and  the  discomfort 
of  that  heathen  handling  kept  me  from  reflect- 
ing upon  my  desperate  position.  After  nearly 
three  hours  we  stopped,  and  I  saw  that  we  had 
come  to  a  city.  The  streets  were  not  much  to 
look  at,  and  the  houses  were  mud  and  thatch, 
but  on  a  hillock  in  the  middle  stood  a  muckle 
temple  not  unlike  a  Chinese  pagoda.  There  was 
a  man  blowing  a  horn,  and  a  lot  of  folk  shout 

290 


DIVUS  JOHNSTON 

ing,  but  I  paid  no  attention,  for  I  was  sore 
troubled  with  the  cramp  in  my  left  leg.  They 
took  me  into  one  of  the  huts  and  made  signs  that 
I  was  to  have  it  for  my  habitation.  They 
brought  me  water  to  wash,  and  a  very  respect- 
able dinner,  which  included  a  hen  and  a 
vegetable  not  unlike  greens.  Then  they  left 
me  to  myself,  and  I  lay  down  and  slept  for  a 
round  of  the  clock. 

"I  was  three  days  in  that  hut.  I  had  plenty  to 
eat  and  the  folk  were  very  civil,  but  they 
wouldna  let  me  outbye  and  there  was  no  window 
to  look  out  of.  I  couldna  make  up  my  mind 
what  they  wanted  with  me.  I  was  a  prisoner, 
but  they  did  not  behave  as  if  they  bore  any 
malice,  and  I  might  have  thought  I  was  an 
honoured  guest,  but  for  the  guards  at  the  door. 
Time  hung  heavy  on  my  hands,  for  I  had  noth- 
ing to  read  and  no  light  to  read  by.  I  said  over 
all  the  chapters  of  the  Bible  and  all  the  Scots 
songs  I  could  remember,  and  I  tried  to  make  a 
poem  about  my  adventures,  but  I  stuck  at  the 
fifth  line,  for  I  couldna  find  a  rhyme  to  Mc- 
Kelvie. 

'^On  the  fourth  morning  I  was  awakened  by 
the  most  deafening  din.  I  saw  through  the  door 
that  the  streets  were  full  of  folk  in  holiday 

291 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

clothes,  most  of  them  with  flowers  in  their  hair 
and  carrying  palm  branches  in  their  hands.  I^ 
was  like  something  out  of  a  Bible  picture  book. 
After  I  had  my  breakfast  four  lads  in  long 
white  gowns  arrived,  and  in  spite  of  all  my  pro- 
tests they  made  a  bonny  spectacle  of  me.  They 
took  off  my  clothes,  me  blushing  with  shame,  and 
rubbed  me  with  a  kind  of  oil  that  smelt  of  cin- 
namon. Then  they  shaved  my  chin,  and  painted 
on  my  forehead  a  mark  like  a  freemason's.  Then 
they  put  on  me  a  kind  of  white  nightgown  with 
a  red  sash  round  the  middle,  and  they  wouldna 
be  hindered  from  clapping  on  my  head  a  great 
wreath  of  hot-house  flowers,  as  if  I  was  a  funeral. 

"And  then  like  a  thunder-clap  I  realised  my 
horrible  position.  /  was  a  funeral.  I  was  to  be 
offered  up  as  a  sacrifice  to  some  heathen  god— 
an  awful  fate  for  a  Free-kirk  elder  in  the  prime 
of  life. 

"I  was  so  paralytic  with  terror  that  I  never 
tried  to  resist.  Indeed,  it  would  have  done  me 
little  good,  for  outside  there  were,  maybe,  two 
hundred  savages^armed  and  drilled  like  soldiers. 
I  was  put  into  a  sort  of  palanquin,  and  my 
bearers  started  on  a  trot  with  me  up  the  hill  to 
the  temple,  the  whole  population  of  the  city 
running  alongside,  and  singing  songs  about  their 

292 


DIVUS  JOHNSTON 

god.  I  was  sick  with  fear,  and  I  durstna  look 
up,  for  I  did  not  know  what  awesome  sight 
av\  aited  me. 

''At  last  I  got  my  courage  back.  Teter,'  I 
says  to  myself,  'be  a  man.  Remember  your 
sainted  covenanting  forefathers.  You  have  been 
chosen  to  testify  for  your  religion,  though  it's 
no  likely  that  yon  savages  will  understand  what 
you  say.'  So  I  shut  my  jaw  and  resolved  before 
I  died  to  make  a  declaration  of  my  religious 
principles,  and  to  loosen  some  of  the  heathen's 
tetth  with  my  fists. 

''We  stopped  at  the  temple  door  and  I  was 
led  through  a  court  and  into  a  muckle  great 
place  like  a  barn,  with  bats  flying  about  the 
ceiling.  Here  there  were  nearly  three  thousand 
heathens  sitting  on  their  hunkers.  They  sang 
a  liymn  when  they  saw  me,  and  I  was  just  getting 
ready  for  action  when  my  bearers  carried  me 
into  another  place,  which  I  toot  to  be  the  Holy 
of  Holies.  It  was  about  half  the  size  of  the 
first,  and  at  the  end  of  it  was  a  great  curtain  of 
leopards'  skins  hanging  from  roof  to  floor.  My 
bearers  set  me  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  and 
then  rolled  about  on  their  stomachs  in  adora- 
tion before  the  curtain.    After  a  bit  they  finished 

293 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

their  prayers  and  crawled  out  backwards,  and  I^ 
was  left  alone  in  that  fearsome  place. 

"It  was  the  worst  experience  of  my  life.  I 
believed  that  behind  the  skins  there  was  a  hor- 
rible idol,  and  that  at  any  moment  a  priest  with 
a  knife  would  slip  in  to  cut  my  throat.  You  may 
crack  about  courage,  but  I  tell  you  that  a  man 
who  can  wait  without  a  quiver  on  his  murderers 
in  the  middle  of  a  gloomy  kirk  is  more  than 
human.  I  am  not  ashamed  to  confess  that  the 
sweat  ran  over  my  brow,  and  my  teeth  were 
knocking  in  my  head.  |||  M 

"But  nothing  happened.  Nothing,  except  that 
as  I  sat  there  I  began  to  feel  a  most  remarkable 
smell.  At  first  I  thought  the  place  was  on  fire. 
Then  I  thought  it  was  the  kind  of  stink  called 
incense  that  they  make  in  Popish  kirks,  for  I 
once  wandered  into  a  cathedral  in  Santiago. 
But  neither  guess  was  right,  and  then  I  put  my 
thumb  on  the  proper  description.  It  was  noth- 
ing but  the  smell  of  the  third-class  carriages  on 
the  Coatbridge  train  on  a  Saturday  night  after  a 
football  match — the  smell  of  plug  tobacco 
smoked  in  clay  pipes  that  were  no  just  very 
clean.  My  eyes  were  getting  accustomed  to  the 
light,  and  I  found  the  place  no  that  dark;  and 
as  I  looked  round  to  see  what  caused  the  smell,  I 

294 


DIVUS  JOHNSTON 

spied  something  like  smoke  coming  from  beyond 
the  top  of  the  curtain. 

''I  noticed  another  thing.  There  was  a  hole 
in  the  curtain,  about  six  feet  from  the  floor,  and 
at  that  hole  as  I  watched  I  saw  an  eye.  My 
heart  stood  still,  for,  thinks  I,  that'll  be  the 
priest  of  Baal  who  presently  will  stick  a  knife 
into  me.  It  was  long  ere  I  could  screw  up  cour- 
age to  look  again,  but  I  did  it.  And  then  I  saw 
that  the  eye  was  not  that  of  a  savage,  which 
would  be  black  and  blood-shot.  It  was  a  blue 
eye,  and,  as  I  looked,  it  winked  at  me. 

"And  then  a  voice  spoke  out  from  behind  the 
curtain,  and  this  was  what  it  said.  It  said, 
*God  sake,  Peter,  is  it  you?  And  how  did  ye 
leave  them  a'  at  Maryhill?' 

''And  from  behind  the  curtain  walked  a 
muckle  man,  dressed  in  a  pink  blanket,  a  great 
red-headed  man,  with  a  clay  pipe  in  his  mouth. 
It  was  the  god  of  the  savages,  and  who  do  ye 
think  it  was?  A  man  Johnston,  who  used  to 
bide  in  the  same  close  as  me  in  Glasgow.  .  .  ." 

Mr  Thomson's  emotion  overcame  him,  and 
he  accepted  a  stiff  drink  from  my  flask.  Wiping 
away  a  tear,  which  may  have  been  of  sentiment 
or  of  mirth,  he  continued, — 

''You  may  imagine  that  I  was  joyful  and  sur- 
295 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

prised  to  see  him,  and  he,  so  to  speak,  fell  on 
my  neck  like  the  father  of  the  Prodigal  Son. 
He  hadna  seen  a  Scotch  face  for  four  years. 
He  raked  up  one  or  two  high  priests  and  gave 
instructions,  and  soon  I  was  comfortably  lodged 
in  a  part  of  the  temple  close  to  his  own  rooms. 
Eh,  man,  it  was  a  noble  sight  to  see  Johnston  and 
the  priests.  He  was  a  big,  red-haired  fellow, 
six  feet  four,  and  as  strong  as  a  stot,  with  a  voice 
like  a  north-easter,  and  yon  natives  fair  crawled 
like  caterpillars  in  his  presence.  I  never  saw  a 
man  with  such  a  natural  talent  for  being  a  god. 
You  would  have  thought  he  had  been  bred  to 
the  job  all  his  days,  and  yet  I  minded  him  keep- 
ing a  grocer's  shop  in  the  Dalmarnock  Road. 

"That  night  he  told  me  his  story.  It  seemed 
that  he  had  got  a  post  at  Shanghai  in  a  trading 
house,  and  was  coming  out  to  it  in  one  of  those 
God-forgotten  German  tramps  that  defile  the 
China  seas.  Like  me,  he  fell  in  with  a  hurricane, 
and,  like  me,  his  ship  was  doomed.  He  was  a 
powerful  swimmer,  and  managed  to  keep  afloat 
until  he  found  some  drifting  wreckage,  and  af- 
ter the  wind  had  gone  down  he  paddled  ashore. 
There  he  was  captured  by  the  savages,  and  taken, 
like  me,  to  their  city.  They  were  going  to  sacri- 
fice him,  but  one  cjiief ,  wiser  than  the  rest,  called 

296 


DIVUS  JOHNSTON 

attention  to  his  size  and  strength,  and  pointed 
out  that  they  were  at  war  with  their  neighbours, 
and  that  a  big  man  would  be  of  more  use  in  the 
fighting  line  than  on  an  altar  in  the  temple. 

''So  off  went  Johnston  to  the  wars.  He  was  a 
bonny  fighter,  and  very  soon  they  made  him 
captain  of  the  royal  bodyguard,  and  a  fortnight 
later  the  general  commanding-in-chief  over  the 
whole  army.  He  said  he  had  never  enjoyed 
himself  so  much  in  his  life,  and  when  he  got 
back  from  his  battles  the  whole  population  of 
the  city  used  to  meet  him  with  songs  and  flowers. 
Then  an  old  priest  found  an  ancient  prophecy 
about  a  Red  God  who  would  come  out  of  the 
sea  and  lead  the  people  to  victory.  Very  soon 
there  was  a  strong  party  for  making  Johnston  a 
god;  and  when,  with  the  help  of  a  few  sticks  of 
trade  dynamite,  he  had  blown  up  the  capital  of 
the  other  side  and  brought  back  his  army  in 
triumph  with  a  prisoner  apiece,  popular  feeling 
could  not  be  restrained.  Johnston  was  hailed  as 
divine.  He  hadna  much  grip  of  the  language, 
and  couldna  explain  the  situation,  so  he  thought 
it  best  to  submit. 

"  'Mind  you,'  he  said  to  me,  'IVe  been  a  good 
god  to  these  poor  blind  ignorant  folk.'  He  had 
stopped  the  worst  of  their  habits  and  put  down 

297 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

human  sacrifices,  and  got  a  sort  of  town  council 
appointed  to  keep  the  city  clean,  and  he  had 
made  the  army  the  most  efficient  thing  ever 
heard  of  in  the  islands.  And  now  he  was  pre- 
paring to  leave.  This  was  what  they  expected, 
for  the  prophecy  had  said  that  the  Red  God, 
after  being  the  saviour  of  his  people,  would  de- 
part as  he  had  come  across  the  sea.  So,  under 
his  directions,  they  had  built  him  a  kind  of  boat 
with  which  he  hoped  to  reach  Singapore.  He 
had  got  together  a  considerable  fortune,  too, 
chiefly  in  rubies,  for  as  a  god  he  had  plenty  of 
opportunities  of  acquiring  wealth  honestly.  He 
said  there  was"  a  sort  of  greengrocer's  and 
butcher's  shop  before  his  altar  every  morning, 
and  he  got  one  of  the  priests,  who  had  some  busi- 
ness notions,  to  sell  off  the  goods  for  him. 

"There  was  just  one  thing  that  bothered  Mr 
Johnston.  He  was  a  good  Christian  man  and 
had  been  an  elder  in  a  kirk  in  the  Cowcaddens, 
and  he  was  much  in  doubt  whether  he  had  not 
committed  a  mortal  sin  in  accepting  the  worship 
of  these  heathen  islanders.  Often  I  argued  it 
out  with  him,  but  I  did  not  seem  able  to  comfort 
him  rightly.  *Ye  see,'  he  used  to  say  to  me,  'if 
I  have  broken  anything,  it's  the  spirit  and  no 
the  letter  of  the  Commandment.     I  havena  set 

298 


DIVUS  JOHNSTON 

up  a  graven  image,  for  ye  canna  call  me  a  graven 
image.' 

'^I  mind  that  I  quoted  to  him  the  conduct  of 
Naaman,  who  was  allowed  to  bow  in  the  house 
of  Rimmon,  but  he  would  not  have  it.  ^No,  no/ 
he  cried,  ^that  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  point. 
It's  no  a  question  of  my  bowing  in  the  house  of 
Rimmon.    I'm  auld  Rimmon  himself.'  " 

"That's  a  strange  story,  Mr  Thomson,"  I  said. 
"Is  it  true?" 

"True  as  death.  But  you  havena  heard  the 
end  of  it.  We  got  away,  and  by-and-by  we 
reached  Singapore,  and  in  course  of  time  our 
native  land.  Johnston,  he  was  a  very  rich  man 
now,  and  I  didna  go  without  my  portion;  so  the 
loss  of  the  Archibald  McKelvie  turned  out  the 
best  piece  of  luck  in  my  life.  I  bought  a  share 
in  Brock's  Line,  but  nothing  would  content 
Johnston  but  that  he  must  be  a  gentleman.  He 
got  a  big  estate  in  Annandale,  where  all  the 
Johnstons  came  from  long  ago,  and  one  way 
and  another  he  has  spent  an  awful  siller  on  it. 
Land  will  swallow  up  money  quicker  than  the 
sea. 

"And  what  about  his  conscience?"  I  asked. 

"It's  keeping  quieter,"  said  Mr  Thomson. 
299 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

"He  takes  a  great  interest  in  Foreign  Missions, 
to  which  he  subscribes  largely,  and  they  tell  me 
that  he  has  given  the  funds  to  build  several  new 
kirks.  Oh  yes,  and  he's  just  been  adopted  as  a 
prospective  Liberal  candidate.  I  had  a  letter 
from  him  no  further  feack  than  yesterday.  It's 
about  his  political  career,  as  he  calls  it.  He  told 
me,  what  didna  need  telling,  that  I  must  never 
mention  a  word  about  his  past.  ^If  discretion 
was  necessary  before,'  he  says,  *it's  far  more  nec- 
essary now,  for  how  could  the  Party  of  Progress 
have  any  confidence  in  a  man  if  they  heard  he 
had  once  been  a  god?'  " 


300 


VIII 

THE  KING  OF  YPRES 

PRIVATE  PETER  GALBRAITH,  of  the 
3rd  Lennox  Highlanders,  awoke  with  a 
splitting  headache  and  the  consciousness  of  an 
intolerable  din.  At  first  he  thought  it  was  the 
whistle  from  the  forge,  which  a  year  ago  had 
pulled  him  from  his  bed  when  he  was  a  puddler 
in  Motherwell.  He  scrambled  to  his  feet,  and 
nearly  cracked  his  skull  against  a  low  roof. 
That,  and  a  sound  which  suggested  that  the 
heavens  were  made  of  canvas  which  a  giant 
hand  was  rending,  cleared  his  wits  and  recalled 
him  to  the  disagreeable  present.  He  lit  the  dot- 
tle in  his  pipe,  and  began  to  piece  out  his  where- 
abouts. 

Late  the  night  before,  the  remnants  of  his  bat- 
talion had  been  brought  in  from  the  Gheluvelt 
trenches  to  billets  in  Ypres.  That  last  week  he 
had  gone  clean  off  his  sleep.    He  had  not  been 

301 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

dry  for  a  fortnight,  his  puttees  had  rotted  away, 
his  greatcoat  had  disappeared  in  a  mud-hole, 
and  he  had  had  no  stomach  for  what  food  could 
be  got.  He  had  seen  half  his  battalion  die  be- 
fore his  eyes,  and  day  and  night  the  shells  had 
burst  round  him  till  the  place  looked  like  the 
ironworks  at  Motherwell  on  a  foggy  night.  The 
worst  of  it  was  that  he  had  never  come  to  grips 
with  the  Boches,  which  he  had  long  decided  was 
the  one  pleasure  left  to  him  in  life.  He  had  got 
far  beyond  cursing,  though  he  had  once  had  a 
talent  that  way.  His  mind  was  as  sodden  as  his 
body,  and  his  thoughts  had  been  focussed  on 
the  penetrating  power  of  a  bayonet  when  direct- 
ed against  a  plump  Teutonic  chest.  There  had 
been  a  German  barber  in  Motherwell  called 
Schultz,  and  he  imagined  the  enemy  as  a  million 
Schultzes — large,  round  men  who  talked  with 
the  back  of  their  throat. 

In  billets  he  had  scraped  off  the  worst  part  of 
the  mud,  and  drunk  half  a  bottle  of  wine  which 
a  woman  had  given  him.  It  tasted  like  red  ink, 
but  anything  liquid  was  better  than  food.  Sleep 
was  what  he  longed  for,  but  he  could  not  get  it. 
The  Boches  were  shelling  the  town,  and  the 
room  he  shared  with  six  others  seemed  as  noisy 
as  the  Gallowgate  on  a  Saturday  night.     H 

302 


c 


I 


THE  KING  OF  YPRES 

wanted  to  get  deep  down  into  the  earth  where 
there  was  no  sound;  so,  while  the  others  snored, 
he  started  out  to  look  for  a  cellar.  In  the  black 
darkness,  while  the  house  rocked  to  the  shell 
reverberations,  he  had  groped  his  way  down  the 
stairs,  found  a  door  which  led  to  another  flight, 
and,  slipping  and  stumbling,  had  come  to  a  nar- 
row, stuffy  chamber  which  smelt  of  potatoes. 
There  he  had  lain  down  on  some  sacks  and  fallen 
into  a  frowsty  slumber. 

His  head  was  spinning,  but  the  hours  of  sleep 
had  done  him  good.  He  felt  a  slight  appetite 
for  breakfast,  as  well  as  an  intolerable  thirst. 
He  groped  his  way  up  the  stairs,  and  came  out  in 
a  dilapidated  hall  lit  by  a  dim  November  morn- 
ing. 

There  was  no  sign  of  the  packs  which  had 
beea  stacked  there  the  night  before.  He  looked 
for  a  Boche's  helmet  which  he  had  brought  in 
as  a  souvenir,  but  that  was  gone.  Then  he  found 
the  room  where  he  had  been  billeted.  It  was 
empty,  and  only  the  stale  smell  of  tobacco  told 
of  its  occupants. 

Lonely,  disconsolate,  and  oppressed  with 
thoughts  of  future  punishment,  he  moved  to- 
wards the  street  door.  Suddenly  the  door  of  a 
side  room  opened  and  a  man  came  out,  a  furtive 

303 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

figure  with  a  large,  pasty  face.  His  pockets 
bulged,  and  in  one  hand  was  a  silver  candlestick. 
At  the  sight  of  Galbraith  he  jumped  back  and 
held  up  a  pistol. 

^Tit  it  down,  man,  and  tell's  what's  come  ower 
this  place?"  said  the  soldier.  For  answer,  a  bul- 
let sang  past  his  ear  and  shivered  a  plaster 
Venus. 

Galbraith  gave  his  enemy  the  butt  of  his  rifle 
and  laid  him  out.  From  his  pockets  he  shook 
out  a  mixed  collection  of  loot.  He  took  posses- 
sion of  his  pistol,  and  kicked  him  with  some  ve- 
hemence into  a  cupboard. 

"That  yin's  a  thief,"  was  his  spoken  reflection. 
"There's  something  michty  wrong  wi'  Wipers 
the  day." 

His  head  was  clearing,  and  he  was  getting 
very  wroth.  His  battalion  had  gone  off  and  left 
him  in  a  cellar,  and  miscreants  were  abroad. 
It  was  time  for  a  respectable  man  to  be  up  and 
doing.  Besides,  he  wanted  his  breakfast.  He 
fixed  his  bayonet,  put  the  pistol  in  his  pocket, 
and  emerged  into  the  November  drizzle. 

The  streets  suddenly  were  curiously  still.  The 
occasional  shell-fire  came  to  his  ears  as  if 
through  layers  of  cotton-wool.  He  put  this 
down  to  dizziness  from  lack  of  food,  and  madi;: 

304 


THE  KING  OF  YPRES 

his  way  to  what  looked  like  an  estaminet.  The 
place  was  full  of  riotous  people  who  were  help- 
ing  themselves  to  drinks,  while  a  distracted  land- 
lord wrung  his  hands.  He  flew  to  Galbraith,  the 
tears  running  down  his  cheeks,  and  implored 
him  in  broken  words. 

^'Vere  ze  Engleesh?"  he  cried.  "Ze  mechants 
rob  me.    Zere  is  une  emeute.    Vere  ze  officers?" 

^'That's  what  I'm  wantin'  to  ken  myseP,"  said 
Galbraith. 

"Zey  are  gone,"  wailed  the  innkeeper.  "Zere 
is  no  gendarme  or  anyzing,  and  I  am  rob." 

^'Where's  the  polis?  Get  the  Provost,  man. 
D'ye  tell  me  there's  no  polis  left?" 

"I  am  rob,"  the  wail  continued.  "Ze  me- 
chants rob  ze  magasins  and  ve  vill  be  assassines." 

Light  was  dawning  upon  Private  Galbraith. 
The  British  troops  had  left  Ypres  for  some  rea- 
son which  he  could  not  fathom,  and  there  was 
no  law  or  order  in  the  little  city.  At  other  times 
he  had  hated  the  law  as  much  as  any  man,  and 
his  relations  with  the  police  had  often  been 
strained.  Now  he  realised  that  he  had  done 
them  an  injustice.  Disorder  suddenly  seemed  to 
him  the  one  thing  intolerable.  Here  had  he 
been  undergoing  a  stiff  discipline  for  weeks,  and 
if  that  was  his  fate  no  civilian  should  be  allowed 

305 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

on  the  loose.  He  was  a  British  soldier — ma- 
rooned here  by  no  fault  of  his  own — and  it  was 
his  business  to  keep  up  the  end  of  the  British 
Army  and  impose  the  King's  peace  upon  the  un- 
ruly. His  temper  was  getting  hot,  but  he  was 
curiously  happy.  He  marched  into  the  estami- 
net,  "Oot  o'  here,  ye  scum!"  he  bellowed. 
"Sortez,  ye  cochons!" 

The  revellers  were  silent  before  the  appari- 
tion. Then  one,  drunker  than  the  rest,  flung  a 
bottle  which  grazed  his  right  ear.  That  put  the 
finishing  touch  to  his  temper.  Roaring  like  a 
bull,  he  was  among  them,  prodding  their  hinder 
parts  with  his  bayonet,  and  now  and  then  revers- 
ing his  rifle  to  crack  a  head.  He  had  not  played 
centre-forward  in  the  old  days  at  Celtic  Park  for 
nothing.  The  place  emptied  in  a  twinkling — all 
but  one  man  whose  legs  could  not  support  him. 
Him  Private  Galbraith  seized  by  the  scruff  and 
the  slack  of  his  trousers,  and  tossed  into  the 
street. 

^^Now  I'll  hae  my  breakfast,"  he  said  to  the 
trembling  landlord. 

Private  Galbraith,  much  the  better  for  his  ex- 
ercise, made  a  hearty  meal  of  bread  and  cold 
ham,  and  quenched  his  thirst  with  two  bottles  of 
Hazebrouck  beer.    He  had  also  a  little  brand 

306 


)y 


THE  KING  OF  YPRES 

and  pocketed  the  flask,  for  which  the  landlord 
refused  all  payment.  Then,  feeling  a  giant  re- 
freshed, he  sallied  into  the  street. 

"I'm  off  to  look  for  your  Provost,"  he  said. 
"If  ye  have  ony  mair  trouble,  ye'U  find  me  at 
the  Toun  Hall." 

A  shell  had  plumped  into  the  middle  of  the 
causeway,  and  the  place  was  empty.  Private 
Galbraith,  despising  shells,  swaggered  up  the 
open,  his  disreputable  kilt  swinging  about  his 
putteeless  legs,  the  remnant  of  a  bonnet  set  well 
on  the  side  of  his  shaggy  red  head,  and  the  light 
of  battle  in  his  eyes.  For  once  he  was  arrayed 
on  tlie  side  of  the  angels,  and  the  thought  encour- 
aged him  mightily.  The  brandy  had  fired  his 
imagination. 

Adventure  faced  him  at  the  next  corner. 
A  woman  was  struggling  with  two  men — a 
slim  pale  girl  with  dark  hair.  No  sound  came 
from  her  lips,  but  her  eyes  were  bright  with  ter- 
ror. Galbraith  started  to  run,  shouting  sound 
British  oaths.  The  men  let  the  woman  go,  and 
turned  to  face  him.  One  had  a  pistol,  and  for 
the  second  time  that  day  a  bullet  just  missed  its 
mark.  An  instant  later  a  clean  bayonet  thrust 
had  ended  the  mortal  career  of  the  marksman, 
and  the  other  had  taken  to  his  heels. 

307 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

"I'll  learn  thae  lads  to  be  sae  free  wi'  their 
popguns,"  said  the  irate  soldier.  "Haud  up, 
Mem.  It's  a'  by  wi'  noo.  Losh!  The  wum- 
man's  fentit!" 

Private  Galbraith  was  as  shy  of  women  as  of 
his  Commanding  Officer,  and  he  had  not  bar- 
gained for  this  duty.  She  was  clearly  a  lady 
from  her  dress  and  appearance,  and  this  did  not 
make  it  easier.  He  supported  her  manfully, 
addressing  to  her  the  kind  of  encouragements 
which  a  groom  gives  to  a  horse.  "Canny  now, 
Mem.    Haud  up !    YeVe  no  cause  to  be  feared." 

Then  he  remembered  the  brandy  in  his 
pocket,  and  with  much  awkwardness  managed 
to  force  some  drops  between  her  lips.  To  his 
vast  relief  she  began  to  come  to.  Her  eyes 
opened  and  stared  uncomprehendingly  at  her 
preserver.    Then  she  found  her  voice. 

"Thank  God,  the  British  have  come  back!" 
she  said  in  excellent  English. 

"No,  Mem;  not  yet.  "It's  just  me.  Private 
Galbraith,  'C  Company,  3rd  Battalion,  Lennox 
Highlanders.  Ye  keep  some  bad  lots  in  this 
toun." 

"Alas!  what  can  we  do?  The  place  is  full  oi 
spies,  and  they  will  stir  up  the  dregs  of  the 
people  and  make  Ypres  a  hell.    Oh,  why  did  the 

308 


THE  KING  OF  YPRES 

British  go?  Our  good  men  are  all  with  the 
army,  and  there  are  only  old  folk  and  wastrels 
left." 

^'Rely  upon  me,  Mem,"  said  Galbraith  stout- 
ly.   "I  was  just  settin'  off  to  find  your  Provost." 

She  puzzled  at  the  word,  and  then  understood. 

^^He  has  gone!"  she  cried.  ^^The  Maire  went 
to  Dunkirk  a  week  ago,  and  there  is  no  authority 
in  Ypres." 

"Then  we'll  make  yin.  Here's  the  minister. 
We  11  speir  at  him." 

An  old  priest,  with  a  lean,  grave  face,  had 
come  up. 

''Ah,  Mam'selle  Omerine,"  he  cried,  "the 
devil  in  our  city  is  unchained.  Who  is  this 
soldier?" 

The  two  talked  in  French,  while  Galbraith 
whistled  and  looked  at  the  sky.  A  shrapnel  shell 
was  bursting  behind  the  cathedral,  making  a 
splash  of  colour  in  the  November  fog.  Then  the 
priest  spoke  in  careful  and  constrained  English. 

"There  is  yet  a  chance  for  a  strong  man.  But 
he  must  be  very  strong.  Mam'selle  will  sum- 
mon her  father,  Monsieur  le  Procureur,  and  we 
will  meet  at  the  Mairie.  I  will  guide  you  there, 
man  brave /^ 

The  Grande  Place  was  deserted,  and  in  the 
309 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

middle  there  was  a  new  gaping  shell-hole.  At 
the  door  of  a  great  building,  which  Galbraith 
assumed  to  be  the  Town  Hall,  a  feeble  old  por- 
ter was  struggling  with  a  man.  Galbraith 
scragged  the  latter  and  pitched  him  into  the 
shell-hole.  There  was  a  riot  going  on  in  a  cafe 
on  the  far  side  which  he  itched  to  have  a  hand 
in,  but  he  postponed  that  pleasure  to  a  more  con- 
venient season. 

Twenty  minutes  later,  in  a  noble  room  with 
frescoed  and  tapestried  walls,  there  was  a  strange 
conference.  The  priest  was  there,  and  Gal- 
braith, and  Mam'selle  Omerine,  and  her  father, 
M.  St  Marais.  There  was  a  doctor  too,  and 
three  elderly  citizens,  and  an  old  warrior  who 
had  left  an  arm  on  the  Yser.  Galbraith  took 
charge,  with  Mam'selle  as  his  interpreter,  and 
in  half  an  hour  had  constituted  a  Committee  of 
Public  Safety.  He  had  nervous  folk  to  deal 
with. 

"The  Germans  may  enter  at  any  moment,  and 
then  we  will  all  be  hanged,"  said  one. 

"Nae  doot,"  said  Galbraith;  "but  ye  needna 
get  your  throats  cut  afore  they  come." 

"The  city  is  full  of  the  ill-disposed,"  said  an- 
other. "The  Boches  have  their  spies  in  every 
alley.    We  who  are  so  few  cannot  control  them.'' 

310 


THE  KING  OF  YPRES 

"If  it's  spies,"  said  Galbraith  firmly,  "I'll  take 
on  the  job  my  lone.  D'ye  think  a  terrier  dowg's 
feared  of  a  wheen  rottens?"  * 

In  the  end  he  had  his  way,  with  Mam'selle's 
help,  and  had  put  some  confidence  into  civic 
breasts.  It  took  him  the  best  part  of  the  after- 
noon to  collect  his  posse.  He  got  every  wounded 
Belgian  that  had  the  use  of  his  legs,  some  well- 
grown  boys,  one  or  two  ancients,  and  several 
dozen  robust  women.  There  was  no  lack  of 
weapons,  and  he  armed  the  lot  with  a  strange 
collection  of  French  and  English  rifles,  giving 
pistols  to  the  section  leaders.  With  the  help  of 
the  Procureur,  he  divided  the  city  into  beats 
and  gave  his  followers  instructions.  They  were 
drastic  orders,  for  the  situation  craved  for  vio- 
lence. 

He  spent  the  evening  of  his  life.  So  far  as  he 
remembered  afterwards,  he  was  in  seventeen  dif- 
ferent scraps.  Strayed  revellers  were  leniently 
dealt  with — the  canal  was  a  cooling  experience. 
Looters  were  rounded  up,  and,  if  they  showed 
fight,  summarily  disposed  of.  One  band  of  bul- 
lies made  a  stout  resistance,  killed  two  of  his 
guards,  and  lost  half  a  dozen  dead.  He  got  a 
black  eye,  a  pistol-bullet  through  his  sleeve,  a 

*  Anglice — rats. 


>»] 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHQ 

wipe  on  the  cheek  from  a  carving-knife,  and  he 
lost  the  remnants  of  his  bonnet.  Fifty-two  pris- 
oners spent  the  night  in  the  cellars  of  the  Mairie. 

About  midnight  he  found  himself  in  the  tap- 
estried chamber.  "We^'ll  hae  to  get  a  Procla- 
mation," he  had  announced ;  "a  gude  strong  yin, 
for  we  maun  conduct  this  job  according  to  the 
rules."  So  the  Procureur  had  a  document  drawn 
up  bidding  all  inhabitants  of  Ypres  keep  in- 
doors except  between  the  hours  of  lo  a.  m.  and 
noon,  and  3  and  5  p.  m. ;  forbidding  the  sale  of 
alcohol  in  all  forms;  and  making  theft  and  vio- 
lence and  the  carrying  of  arms  punishable  by 
death.  There  was  a  host  of  other  provisions 
which  Galbraith  imperfectly  understood,  but 
when  the  thing  was  translated  to  him  he  ap- 
proved its  spirit.  He  signed  the  document  in  his 
large  sprawling  hand — ^Teter  Galbraith,  1473, 
Pte.,  3rd  Lennox  Highlanders,  Acting  Provost 
of  Wipers." 

"Get  that  prentit,"  he  said,  "and  pit  up  copies 
at  every  street  corner  and  on  a'  the  public-hooses. 
And  see  that  the  doors  o'  the  publics  are  boardit 
up.  That'll  do  for  the  day.  I'm  feelin'  verra 
like  my  bed." 

Mam'selle  Omerine  watched  him  with  a 
3^2 


THE  KING  OF  YPRES 

smile.    She  caught  his  eye  and  dropped  him  a 
curtsey. 

'Monsieur  le  Roi  d'Ypres,"  she  said. 

He  blushed  hotly. 

For  the  next  few  days  Private  Galbraith 
worked  harder  than  ever  before  in  his  existence. 
For  the  first  time  he  knew  responsibility,  and 
that  toil  which  brings  honour  with  it.  He  tasted 
the  sweets  of  office;  and  he,  whose  aim  in  life 
had  been  to  scrape  through  with  the  minimum 
of  exertion,  now  found  himself  the  inspirer  of 
the  maximum  in  others. 

At  first  he  scorned  advice,  being  shy  and  ner- 
vous. Gradually,  as  he  felt  his  feet,  he  became 
glad  of  other  people's  wisdom.  Especially  he 
leaned  on  two,  Mam'selle  Omerine  and  her 
father.  Likewise  the  priest,  whom  he  called 
the  minister. 

By  the  second  day  the  order  in  Ypres  was  re- 
markable. By  the  third  day  it  was  phenomenal ; 
and  by  the  fourth  a  tyranny.  The  little  city  for 
the  first  time  for  seven  hundred  years  fell  under 
the  sway  of  a  despot.  A  citizen  had  to  be  on  his 
best  behaviour,  for  the  Acting  Provost's  eye  was 
on  Jiim.  Never  was  seen  so  sober  a  place.  Three 
permits  for  alcohol  and  no  more  were  issued, 

313 


'   THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

and  then  only  on  the  plea  of  medical  necessity. 
Peter  handed  over  to  the  doctor  the  flask  of 
brandy  he  had  carried  off  from  the  estaminet — 
Provosts  must  set  an  example. 

The  Draconian  code  promulgated  the  first 
night  was  not  adhered  to.  Looters  and  violent 
fellows  went  to  gaol  instead  of  the  gallows.  But 
three  spies  were  taken  and  shot  after  a  full  trial. 
That  trial  was  the  master  effort  of  Private  Gal- 
braith — based  on  his  own  regimental  experience 
and  memories  of  a  Sheriff  Court  in  Lanarkshire, 
where  he  had  twice  appeared  for  poaching.  He 
was  extraordinarily  punctilious  about  forms, 
and  the  three  criminals — their  guilt  was  clear, 
and  they  were  the  scum  of  creation — had  some- 
thing more  than  justice.  The  Acting  Provost 
pronounced  sentence,  which  the  priest  translat- 
ed, and  a  file  of  mutiles  in  the  yard  did  the  rest. 

"If  the  Boches  get  in  here  we'll  pay  for  this 
day's  work,"  said  the  judge  cheerfully;  "but  I'll 
gang  easier  to  the  grave  for  havin'  got  rid  o'  thae 
swine." 

On  the  fourth  day  he  had  a  sudden  sense  of 
dignity.  He  examined  his  apparel,  and  found 
it  very  bad.  He  needed  a  new  bonnet,  a  new 
kilt,  and  puttees,  and  he  would  be  the  better  of 
a  new  shirt.    Being  aware  that  commandeering 

314 


THE  KING  OF  YPRES 

for  personal  use  ill  suited  with  his  office,  he  put 
the  case  before  the  Procureur,  and  a  Commis- 
sion de  Ravitaillement  was  appointed.  Shirts 
and  puttees  were  easily  got,  but  the  kilt  and  bon- 
net were  difficulties.  But  next  morning  Mam'- 
selle  Omerine  brought  a  gift.  It  was  a  bonnet 
with  such  a  dicing  round  the  rim  as  no  Jock 
ever  wore,  and  a  skirt — it  is  the  truest  word — 
of  that  pattern  which  graces  the  persons  of  small 
girls  in  France.  It  was  not  the  Lennox  tartan, 
it  was  not  any  kind  of  tartan,  but  Private  Gal- 
braith  did  not  laugh.  He  accepted  the  gar- 
ments with  a  stammer  of  thanks — ^They're  aw- 
fu'  braw,  and  I^m  much  obliged,  Mem" — and, 
what  is  more,  he  put  them  on.  The  Ypriotes 
saw  his  splendour  with  approval.  It  was  a 
proof  of  his  new  frame  of  mind  that  he  did 
not  even  trouble  to  reflect  what  his  comrades 
would  think  of  his  costume,  and  that  he  kissed 

I      the  bonnet  affectionately  before  he  went  to  bed. 

That  night  he  had  evil  dreams.    He  suddenly 

saw  the  upshot  of  it  all — himself  degraded  and 

shot  as  a  deserter,  and  his  brief  glory  pricked 

I  like  a  bubble.  Grim  forebodings  of  court-mar- 
tials assailed  him.  What  would  Mam'selle  think 
of  him  when  he  was  led  away  in  disgrace — he 
w^ho  for  a  little  had  been  a  king?    He  walked 

315 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

about  the  floor  in  a  frenzy  of  disquiet,  and  stood 
long  at  the  window  peering  over  the  Place,  lit 
by  a  sudden  blink  of  moonlight.  It  could  never 
be,  he  decided.  Something  desperate  would 
happen  first.  The  crash  of  a  shell  a  quarter  of 
a  mile  off  reminded  him  that  he  was  in  the  midst 
of  war — war  with  all  its  chances  of  cutting 
knots. 

Next  morning  no  Procureur  appeared.  Then 
came  the  priest  with  a  sad  face  and  a  sadder 
tale.  Mam'selle  had  been  out  late  the  night 
before  on  an  errand  of  mercy,  and  a  shell,  crash- 
ing through  a  gable,  had  sent  an  avalanche 
of  masonry  into  the  street.  She  was  dead,  with- 
out pain,  said  the  priest,  and  in  the  sure  hope 
of  Heaven. 

The  others  wept,  but  Private  Galbraith  strode 
from  the  room,  and  in  a  very  little  time  was  at 
the  house  of  the  Procureur.  He  saw  his  little 
colleague  laid  out  for  death  after  the  fashion  of 
her  Church,  and  his  head  suddenly  grew  very 
clear  and  his  heart  hotter  than  fire. 

"I  maun  resign  this  job,"  he  told  the  Commit- 
tee of  Public  Safety.  ^'IVe  been  forgettin'  that 
I'm  a  sodger  and  no  a  Provost.  It's  my  duty  to 
get  a  nick  at  thae  Boches." 

They  tried  to  dissuade  him,  but  he  was  ada- 
316 


THE  KING  OF  YPRES 

mant.  His  rule  was  over,  and  he  was  going  back 
to  serve. 

But  he  was  not  allowed  to  resign.  For  that 
afternoon,  after  a  week's  absence,  the  British 
troops  came  again  into  Ypres. 

They  found  a  decorous  little  city,  and  many 
people  who  spoke  of  "le  Roi" — ^which  they  as- 
sumed to  signify  the  good  King  Albert.  Also, 
in  a  corner  of  the  cathedral  yard,  sitting  discon- 
solately on  the  edge  of  a  fallen  monument.  Com- 
pany Sergeant-Major  Macvittie  of  the  3rd  Len- 
nox Highlanders  found  Private  Peter  Gal- 
braith. 

'^Ma  God,  Galbraith,  yeVe  done  it  this  time! 
You'll  catch  it  in  the  neck!  Absent  for  a  week 
wi'out  leave,  and  gettin'  yotirseP  up  to  look  like 
Harry  Lauder!    You  come  along  wi'  me!" 

'^I'll  come  quiet,"  said  Galbraith  with  strange 
meekness.  He  was  wondering  how  to  spell 
Omerine  St  Marais  in  case  he  wanted  to  write 
it  in  his  Bible. 

The  events  of  the  next  week  were  confusing  to 
a  plain  man.  Galbraith  was  very  silent,  and 
made  no  reply  to  the  chaff  with  which  at  first 
he  was  greeted.  Soon  his  fellows  forbore  to 
chaff  him,  regarding  him  as  a  doomed  man  who 

317     • 


THE  WATCHER  BY  THE  THRESHOLD 

had  come  well  within  the  pale  of  the  ultimate 
penalties. 

He  was  examined  by  his  Commanding  OfBcer, 
and  interviewed  by  still  more  exalted  person- 
ages. The  story  he  told  was  so  bare  as  to  be 
unintelligible.  He  asked  for  no  mercy,  and 
gave  no  explanations.  But  there  were  other  wit- 
nesses besides  him — the  priest,  for  example,  and 
Monsieur  St  Marais,  in  a  sober  suit  of  black 
and  very  dark  under  the  eyes. 

By-and-by  the  court  gave  its  verdict.  Private 
Peter  Galbraith  was  found  guilty  of  riding 
roughshod  over  the  King's  Regulations ;  he  had 
absented  himself  from  his  battalion  without  per- 
mission; he  had  neglected  his  own  duties  and 
usurped  without  authority  a  number  of  superior 
functions ;  he  had  been  the  cause  of  the  death  or 
maltreatment  of  various  persons  who,  whatever 
their  moral  deficiencies,  must  be  regarded  for 
the  purposes  of  the  case  as  civilian  Allies.  The 
Court,  however,  taking  into  consideration  the 
exceptional  circumstances  in  which  Private 
Galbraith  had  been  placed,  inflicted  no  penalty 
and  summarily  discharged  the  prisoner. 

Privately,  his  Commanding  Officer  and  the 
still  more  exalted  personages  shook  hands  with 

318 


THE  KING  OF  YPRES 

him,  and  told  him  that  he  was  a  devilish  good 
fellow  and  a  credit  to  the  British  Army. 

But  Peter  Galbraith  cared  for  none  of  these 
things.  As  he  sat  again  in  the  trenches  at  St 
Eloi  in  six  inches  of  water  and  a  foot  of  mud, 
he  asked  his  neighbour  how  many  Germans  were 
opposite  them. 

^^I  was  hearin'  that  there  was  maybe  fifty  thoo- 
sand,"  was  the  answer. 

Private  Galbraith  was  content.  He  thought 
that  the  whole  fifty  thousand  would  scarcely 
atone  for  the  death  of  one  slim,  dark-eyed  girl. 


THE  END 


319 


I 


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